


Writing on the Wall

by ScopesMonkey



Series: Hollowverse [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Crime, Double murder, Doubt, Established Relationship, Injured John, M/M, Mystery, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-11 01:30:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 45,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScopesMonkey/pseuds/ScopesMonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having returned from Wales with John injured and a betrayal looming in the background, Sherlock is refusing cases, until both John and a baffling double murder get the better of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Good morning, John. You're up early. 'Yes, I was having troubles sleeping. Didn't want to wake you by tossing and turning.' Oh I am sorry to hear that. Anything I can do to help? 'No, it's fine, shoulder's a bit stiff, that's all.' Is that all? I _was_ rather worried because this is the third time this week it's kept you up. 'Honestly, Sherlock, it's fine. Don't worry about it. It'll be right as rain soon enough.' Right as rain? Who says that? But I _am_ glad to hear it will be fine 'soon enough' because it's not at all been plaguing you since we– got back. _Has it?_ "

John set his coffee aside with a sigh, ignoring the lingering aches that had, in fact, got him up and out of bed to prevent his restlessness from spreading. Between the two of them, they weren't managing much in the way of a good night's sleep lately; he wished he could claim it was for enjoyable reasons. It wasn't staying up that was the problem – although there had been some of that – but staying asleep.

He would have considered moving back up to his old room – temporarily, just to give them each a break – only he knew precisely how that would be interpreted after the revelation about Irene Adler. He still wasn't thrilled about that, but three days alone in the wilderness thinking Sherlock was dead was enough to offset at least some of the anger.

And sleeping upstairs might make it more restful for him, but if Sherlock had a bad night, it would only make it that much worse for the detective.

"It's fine, Sherlock," he said, realizing he was echoing the one-sided conversation Sherlock had just had for them. The detective subjected him to a penetrative glare, its intensity somewhat reduced by the fact that he was in nothing but his dressing gown and a pair of purple silk boxers, and had obviously fussed hair back into something approaching reasonable before storming out of the bedroom.

"It's _not_ fine," Sherlock snapped.

"Of course it's been bothering me," John sighed. "But I've got the sling and it _will be_ fine – it just needs some time. You saw the x-rays," he added, for good measure.

Sherlock glowered at him; John let it slide right by. Unusually for him, he'd had it seen to as soon as Sherlock had mentioned it, three days after they'd returned. It had been jarring to break his fall with his left hand, the shock shuddering up his arm and rooting into his shoulder, but it wouldn't have been as bad if not for the other fall, the one he hadn't initially told Sherlock about.

He'd slipped – when on his own – and tumbled a short way down a hill. It had left bruises, but compared to everything else they'd gone through – particularly Lestrade and Sherlock, with so little food and the DI's injury – it had hardly warranted mentioning.

Until the discomfort hadn't dissipated with the slowly fading bruises and the switch from sleeping on hard, cold ground to a warm, familiar bed. Muscle strain hadn't been a surprise, but the small, dark, radiolucent line on his upper humerus had been. A stress fracture – but a small one, and nothing that warranted serious medical intervention beyond the sling, which he could remove to shower and dress, so long as he was careful.

If he'd gone by the look on Sherlock's face at the news, John might have expected a death sentence. _Thunderous_ was the best adjective he could come up with, but even it seemed pale in comparison with the darkness that had clouded the detective's features.

Even now, over a week later, Sherlock was distracted – reclusive, almost. Refusing to take cases – ostensibly because John needed looking after, which had been fine for about two days, but now that John was back at work, they both knew it was a hollow excuse. He wasn't even speaking to anyone at the Met, except for Lestrade ('He _usually_ avoids wasting my time altogether') and Hassard ('She's _moderately_ clever, I suppose'), and he wasn't taking work from them. He was still eating less than John would like, and hadn't regained all of the weight he'd lost, both in Wales and during the nine months he'd been away.

Getting him out of the flat was an odd struggle – he was wont to do it at random intervals, when he remembered that leaving would frustrate Mycroft's surveillance. To say their relationship was complicated to begin with was an understatement; now John wished he had a map to navigate all its shifting moods and nuances. He'd never seen Mycroft so genuinely concerned – terrified, really – for his brother's well being, but finding out Adler was alive had sparked something in the elder Holmes brother that had led what would have been – for anyone else – a shouting match.

For Sherlock and Mycroft, that meant cold, cutting comments that went beyond their normal barbs and feints into deeply personal, vicious remarks that had left John speechless.

If he'd ever spoken to Harry like that, she'd have rightly never talked to him again.

Justified as Mycroft's ire was, John had never expected that kind of cruelty from him, and he'd intervened, using his best captain's bark to get the elder Holmes out of his house – reminding Mycroft that _was_ his house, and that he wasn't above calling the police. By the time John managed to get Mycroft to leave, Sherlock had entrenched himself in some experiment and had refused to speak for hours.

The day after that verbal battle, Sherlock had accompanied John to work, setting himself up in the doctor's office and refusing to leave until John had seen the last of his patients. Two days later, following as many sleepless nights, he'd found Sherlock perched on the sofa, a small, velvet-lined case open on the coffee table in front of him, with a full needle resting inside of it.

Even the memory of it tightened something around his heart, but it hadn't been the drug John expected. A sedative, which he'd given to Sherlock once he'd figured out exactly what it was and double-checked the dosage. They'd slept on the sofa, Sherlock curled up half on top of John.

Now more than ever, he wished Mrs. Hudson were here. John felt like they were both adrift without her, and he'd found himself in her flat once, looking for her before realizing what he was doing. Sherlock needed her fussing and mothering, and John frankly could have used it, too. The house felt like a fraction of their home, and it didn't help that Sherlock was refusing most visitors, except the ones John imposed on him.

Without clients being allowed to call, there were fewer cases available, and those that came via email or by the post were summarily dismissed. Part of John considered that getting new tenants for Mrs. Hudson's flat would help – although he couldn't imagine that anyone would stand up to an interview with Sherlock Holmes right now.

"There's still coffee in the pot," he said, nodding toward the kitchen. "Fancy breakfast? We could go out."

"I have no desire to be dragged all over the city to satisfy your appetite," Sherlock snapped, stalking into the kitchen, the blue dressing gown billowing behind him only accenting his frame. "And stop it – that appetite doesn't need satisfying, either."

"I didn't say anything," John commented, raising an eyebrow.

"You don't have to," Sherlock replied. "Your pheromones are practically shouting it."

"You can't smell those," John pointed out. "Not consciously."

"Maybe _you_ can't," Sherlock sniffed.

"Nor can you," John said, lips twitching into a smile, because _this_ was more of a Sherlock strop, petulant but not serious. "No matter how smart you are."

Sherlock returned to flop into his chair, managing not to scald himself with hot coffee in the process, and tangled his feet around John's, long toes tugging at the cuffs of his trousers.

"Don't go to work today."

John raised his eyebrows; it was an oddly direct request from Sherlock – no fault found with John's job, no hesitant 'please' tacked on, no faked guile about anything else they could be doing.

"I have to," John sighed. "One of us has to be making money."

Sherlock's lips parted and John could see the ready retort, that Mycroft would deal with any financial details, but it was withheld as Sherlock pursed his lips, grey eyes skittering away.

"Or you could take a case," John said. "What about the one that came in the post yesterday?"

"Boring," Sherlock scoffed.

"Did you even read it?"

An envelope was plucked off a nearby table and ripped open – John refrained from commenting. Sherlock's eyes skimmed it before he tossed the paper aside.

"Boring," he repeated.

"Care to elaborate?"

With a sigh, Sherlock plucked the letter off the floor.

"'Dear Mr. Holmes, I'm so sorry to trouble you, but perhaps you could help with a matter I've never been able to resolve. Some years ago, a precious gemstone of mine went missing, and no amount of investigation has been able to trace its whereabouts. I realize that, after all this time, it's unlikely to be found, but it was very dear, and if anyone could find it, I believe it would be you. Yours,' et cetera, et cetera."

"Boring?" John asked. "What's boring about it?"

"It's been stolen and resold several times or maybe he's just an idiot and put it in the wrong safe or binned it with the rest of the rubbish."

"This kind of puzzle is right up your street, Sherlock."

"He's French," the detective muttered.

"Oh, I see. I didn't realize we were at odds with the French again."

"Don't be absurd, John. I'm not travelling all the way to France to deal with a gem that probably fell victim to some employee with sticky fingers."

"Could be interesting," John commented. "Who is he?"

"No idea," Sherlock replied. "Some Frenchman."

"Well that settles it then," John said.

"What?" Sherlock demanded, narrowed gaze honing in on John like a laser.

"One of us has to make some money," John repeated, bending to press a kiss on Sherlock's forehead as he passed, rewarded by long fingers twining into his jumper, letting go only reluctantly.

"You own this house," Sherlock pointed out.

"Yes, but with the amount you blow things up, I need to keep up with the insurance. You can stay here and screech on your violin all day."

"Screech on my–" Sherlock began, shooting John a dark glare when the doctor grinned. "No, I think I'll do better than that. I'm coming with you."

* * *

"'Morning, John," Sarah said, casting a slightly puzzled look at Sherlock, who was looming behind him like a pale, irritated shadow. They'd be cabbing it home tonight; John was sure they'd almost been kicked off the tube on the way over for Sherlock's uninterrupted assessment of the other passengers, and he didn't want to risk it again.

Or put up with it again.

"You're not ill, are you?" Sarah asked.

"No, he's his usual cheery self," John replied, ignoring the scowl aimed at the back of his head.

"I've work to do," Sherlock said coldly. John shot her a _please_ -indulge-me look, which she returned with an arched eyebrow and a sigh. The brief flicker in her eyes gave away that she was doing it because of Wales; he could have kissed her in relief, if that wouldn't have given Sherlock entirely the wrong idea.

"Keep out from underfoot," Sarah warned him. "And leave the diagnosing to us, please. We know what we're about."

"So John insists on reminding me," Sherlock answered, but followed John willingly, commandeering his office computer immediately, only relinquishing it reluctantly so John could check his patient schedule.

The patient load kept him busy, but he looked in on Sherlock whenever he had a moment; the detective seemed immersed in some internet research, and John privately hoped it was about something other than Irene Adler. For all of Sherlock's protestations that his attention wasn't her goal, and she didn't have it anyway, the doctor was fairly certain she had a pretty prominent place in that incredible mind of his.

He wanted Sherlock to work, of course, but this… John wasn't sure it _was_ work. He'd seen Sherlock give it his all – literally – for a case. Jump off of a roof, fake his own death, live as a shadow for nine months, cut off from everyone he loved and everything he knew.

The motivations behind that were understandable. He still wasn't thrilled about how it had turned out, but he understood the necessity. Right now, he didn't know what the reasons behind this case – if he could call it that – were.

He wondered if any of them did.

In these moments, John longed for life to go back to normal. To rewind everything back to the day before Moriarty broke into the Tower, to let them settle back into their routine and their ignorance of what was to come.

_Snap out of it, Watson_ , he told himself, giving his head a sharp shake as he left an exam room, dropping the updated chart at the desk. It was too easy to dwell on the negative, and let the positive go unremarked. The night before last, they'd both slept well, and John had awoken first to watch as Sherlock drifted back to consciousness, grace and intellect flowing back into limbs and digits before he even opened his eyes.

That was something. No one else in the world got to see that.

"John."

The closeness of Sherlock's voice matched his sudden presence; John had been alone then immediately hadn't been, the detective towering over him, expression verging on a glare.

"Sherlock. Yeah."

"I'm going to the shops. To get a few things."

"Um– all right."

"From the shops."

"Yeah, I did get that the first time," John said. "What things?"

"Things. Things we need. Milk."

"I don't think we need milk."

"Of course we need milk, we always need milk, I'll get milk."

"Sherlock–"

"I'll be home before you," the detective assured him, voice carrying over his shoulder as he strode away. "Mrs. Levins has a gall bladder infection, not kidney stones, and needs to stop treating herself with herbal 'remedies'. I'll get biscuits, too, of course."

John passed his good hand over his face when the door to the waiting room swung closed behind the detective, and took a moment to lean against the wall before seeking Sarah out.

"Can I have ten minutes?" he asked. "Shoulder." The white lie made him feel somewhat guilty, especially at the warm concern on her face.

"Of course. Do you need the sling adjusted?"

"No, it's fine," John replied with a slight smile. "Thanks." He ducked into his mercifully empty office, not even bothering with the computer – whatever Sherlock had been doing would be untraceable by his standards. The sigh of relief at getting off his feet and propping his left arm – carefully – on his desk wasn't feigned.

He pulled out his mobile and sent a quick text to Lestrade.

_You've got to get him a case. Something. Anything._

_I'd love to_ , Lestrade sent back. _Can't talk him round to it. Everything I've got is either boring or obvious. Or both._

John heaved a sigh, the exhalation ending on a slight wince at the twinge in his shoulder.

_Haven't really got anything up his street right now, either_ , Lestrade added.

_No one has_ , John thought, drumming his fingers against the desk. The chime of a new text distracted him – coming from Mycroft almost tempted him to ignore it.

_Could you please convince Sherlock to stop hacking into secured government databases?_

_I doubt it,_ John replied. _He's got to do something._

_Finding Irene Adler is not his purview._

_You're the one who wanted him to in the first place._

_And now he needs to stop_. John could almost hear the aggrieved sigh dripping from Mycroft's message.

_You can't control everything he does._

_Someone's got to, John._

He drummed his fingers on the desk again, chewing on his lower lip, then replied:

_We've decided to have a baby._

Predictably, his phone rang less than ten seconds later.

" _Please_ tell me you're joking. Baker Street is no place for a child."

"Making a point, actually," John said.

"And what is this rather poorly made point?"

"That he can make his own bloody choices. That you can't manipulate all the outcomes."

"That's what I _do_ , John."

"Then why in the bloody hell did you introduce them in the first place?" John snapped. "For god's sake, she's Jim Moriarty in heels! Maybe _slightly_ less dangerous – although I'm really starting to rethink that assessment now. What did you think would happen, Mycroft?"

"I _thought_ he'd do the job given to him. As he always does. Or used to do, at any rate."

"Yeah, well, he's not you, is he?"

"More's the pity."

John swallowed hard, resisting comment.

"Do you know why police officers aren't permitted to work cases that connect to their personal lives or to their partners?" Mycroft asked, as if casually enquiring if John had noted rain in the weather forecast. "That kind of emotional connection can be messy. Mistakes can be made."

"Good thing you handed off the search to someone else when we were missing then, isn't it?" John demanded. He heard Mycroft sigh, but knew he'd hit a mark – Sherlock's brother hadn't been willing to trust anyone else with that investigation.

"Out of everyone you know, Mycroft, you _know_ he's the best person to find her. He understands how she thinks."

"I know quite a lot of people, John."

"And it's still true," John retorted.

"Unfortunately, she also seems to know how _he_ thinks," Mycroft said.

_Maybe not as much as we all thought_ , John mused, pursing his lips to keep the comment to himself.

"And he's not made any significant progress."

"No more than you."

"Now how would you know that?"

"Because if you had, you wouldn't be obliquely asking me about his. Leave it, Mycroft. _I'm_ not worried about where his loyalties lie." He rung off before Mycroft could say anything more – or detect the lie.

It wasn't exactly a lie, not entirely. If really pressed, John trusted Sherlock to make the right choice. He'd learned his lesson.

Absolutely.

Almost definitely.

Probably.

With a deep sigh, John pushed himself back to his feet, put on his best sympathetic smile, and went back to work.


	2. Chapter 2

"So… you went shopping."

"Yes. Obvious."

"And bought milk."

"Yes."

"And biscuits."

"Yes."

John paused, lips pursed, drumming the fingers of his right hand against the wall where the corridor arched into the living room.

"And… pillows."

"Mm. Yes."

"Rather a lot of pillows, actually."

"Twelve," Sherlock said.

"Yeah, I can count."

"Oh good, so nice to know," the detective replied without opening his eyes or shifting from the straight line his body drew from head to toe, somehow precariously propped in his chair.

"Sherlock… why?"

"Why?" Sherlock asked, finally deigning to open one eye a crack. "Why what?"

"Why did you decide we needed twelve new pillows on the bed?"

"Not _we_ , John. You."

"What am I going to do with twelve pillows?"

The sigh he was expecting didn't come; Sherlock bounced to his feet instead, wine-red dressing gown billowing gently as he grasped John's right hand nimbly, spinning him and tugging him along.

"Sit. No, other side."

"This is _my_ side," John protested, already perched on the length of mattress closest to the door.

"It's a bed, John, not a battlefield."

John's lips twitched and he resisted commenting; the first few nights _had_ been a battle, and the ground he'd gained had been hard won against Sherlock's tendency to sprawl long limbs everywhere and take up as much space as he could. Even now, John was more likely than not to awake half covered.

Or he had been, until the sling. His legs were still fair game, but there was never any extra weight on his upper body.

"Sit. Stay still."

John raised his eyebrows at the commands but Sherlock's eyes were narrowed in concentration as he removed the sling carefully. He'd developed a knack for that immediately; John could remove it and refit it himself, but with a lot more effort, and usually didn't bother if Sherlock was available.

"It causes you some discomfort to sleep with this on – very likely the reason you're not sleeping as well or as deeply as you normally might. Sleeping on your back aggravates it, better to sleep on your side, but with the sling, that's not ideal either. A strain on your right shoulder, and mild strain on the left even with the sling, from the pull on your forearm. Can't sleep on your left side now, of course, nor you stomach. Not that you're ever inclined to do either. Left side would risk bothering your shoulder even when it's well, and your stomach leaves you feeling exposed and vulnerable."

John raised an eyebrow when Sherlock's mind seemed to catch up with his words, and the detective cleared his throat.

"Habit from the army," he continued, grey eyes narrowing slightly at the smile that tugged on John's lips. "As is the preference not to sleep with your back to the door. This, however, won't work if you're on 'your' side, as you call it, because of the high probability the pillows would fall to the floor."

"What, exactly, is 'this'?" John asked.

"You don't move when you're sleeping – not appreciably anyway," Sherlock said. "Legs up, sit back." John did as bidden, watching as two of the new pillows were adjusted, the detective's gaze darting between them and John.

"Good. Now, on your side, lie down, I think I've got the proper set up… yes, perfect." John's arm, held carefully in Sherlock's hands, was lowered gingerly onto the pillows, adjusted minutely until he was comfortable. Two more pillows were shoved between the ones holding his arm and the headboard, almost standing up until Sherlock stuffed them down with a satisfied look that made John smile.

"Good?" Sherlock asked.

"Perfect," John replied.

"Another can be added if they become deflated."

"That accounts for five of them," John said. "What about the other seven?"

"Sofa, your chair, and back ups."

"You thought this through."

"I _am_ a genius," Sherlock sniffed.

"Really? Hadn't ever noticed."

"Well, you wouldn't, would you?" Sherlock sniffed, refusing to take the bait. John grinned, easing himself up to sitting with his partner's help. Sherlock fussed with the sling beyond what was strictly necessary; John stilled the movement by curling his right hand over one of the two fluttering at his shoulder. Sherlock's eyes caught his, almost hesitant, checking for discomfort or pain, but John smiled, moving the palm to his lips and kissing it lightly.

"This is–" He released Sherlock's hand, giving his head a small shake. "Thanks."

Sherlock's lips twitched, a hesitant near smile; John tangled his hand into dark curls, drawing them together, letting lips linger. The slight tilt of Sherlock's head deepened the kiss, a long body shifted to pattern itself around John's. The hand resting on the curve of his lower back wasn't exactly casual – not with the way Sherlock's ring finger was worming a bit of space between John's shirt and his jeans. A leg hooked over his, crooks of their knees linked, keeping them together, upright.

A thumb skimmed beneath his shirt, brushing bare skin, the faint scrape of teeth caught his lower lip – and Sherlock gave a harsh, irritated sigh when the buzzer broke through the sound of warm breathing.

"This one's on you," John said, chuckling at the glower shot his way.

"Honestly, don't these people have _any_ sense?"

"Any other time and you'd be complaining it's late. Come on," he said, clapping his good hand on Sherlock's knee. "I'll get the plates."

* * *

It almost felt like a normal evening – what passed as normal for them – with Sherlock picking apart the plot of the programme on the telly as he picked at his food, occasionally jabbing his fork toward the screen to emphasize a point. With the light and the warmth in the flat, it would have been easy to overlook the things just beneath the surface, but John could feel them creeping up on him, a chill seeping through the cracks.

"Come on," he said, pushing himself to his feet, Sherlock's gaze sliding smoothly toward him with the hint of a question. "We're going out."

"Are we?" the detective replied, making no move to stand.

"Yep." John grabbed the empty plate Sherlock had abandoned on the floor and deposited both in the kitchen before summarily banishing the characters on the television.

"I _was_ watching that," Sherlock pointed our sardonically.

"You had the plot figured out in the first five seconds."

"Three actually. Where are you planning on going?"

"Not me, we," John said, reversing his partner's earlier words. "Out."

"Yes, you did say."

"To a pub. Somewhere close. Walking distance. _My_ walking distance," he added, aware that Sherlock considered the entire city to be walkable, given the right amount of time.

"May I ask why?" Sherlock enquired, unfolding his long body in a slow, eloquent movement that John took the time to appreciate.

"That," John said, waving his good hand toward Sherlock; the detective glanced down at himself. "I'm going to get a little drunk and encourage you to take advantage of me."

"We would do that just as easily here – more easily in fact," Sherlock pointed out, a small smile creeping onto his lips.

"It's more fun if we go out. Means you have to behave."

"Does it really?" Sherlock was suddenly in his space, close enough that John could feel the heat radiating from him, and the way he dipped his voice chipped at John's resolve.

"It does," John replied, winding a scarf around his neck one-handed. A slow smile spread across Sherlock's lips; John held himself firm, drawing on years of army training and seven weeks as Sherlock's partner.

"I do like a good challenge," the detective murmured, leaning down slightly – not close enough to bring their lips together, but enough to suggest he might. "Right," he said brightly, pulling away to John's mild sigh of relief. "Get your coat. We haven't got all night."

* * *

They were drawing the occasional stare, even in the lowered lighting of the street lamps; with their faces plastered all over the news for three days, it wasn't entirely surprising. Sherlock's return from the dead had garnered them each attention, and vanishing abruptly in the middle of a murder investigation – along with a DI from Scotland Yard – had only added fuel to the fire. John wanted to hunch down in his coat, but that meant making his shoulder even more uncomfortable. Besides, he didn't want to give anyone the satisfaction. He was going for a pint with his partner, that was all.

Even if he did catch Sherlock glancing over his shoulder at the street. It was only when the detective turned, pausing mid-stride, that John brought it up.

"Are we being followed?"

"We're always being followed," Sherlock murmured in reply.

"By someone other than Mycroft, I mean."

"It's– no. I don't think so, no."

"You don't think so? You're not inspiring much confidence."

"I know they're there," Sherlock replied. "So it's unlikely to be Mary or–"

 _Or her_ , John thought.

"Unless they want us to know," he pointed out.

"Yes," Sherlock said, pursing his lips.

"Well, sod them," John said, earning a slightly startled glance from his partner. "We're out for a drink. We can topple international criminals later." A quick smile crossed Sherlock's lips, sparking a gleam in his grey eyes. "We're here."

They found a small table near the back where John could rest his bad arm, and Sherlock lingered at the bar, waiting on their drinks. John took the opportunity to appreciate the view, entirely unsurprised when his glance was returned by hooded grey eyes. He grinned, shaking his head, earning a cocked eyebrow in return; it was far too early – they hadn't even had one drink – but it wouldn't stop Sherlock from starting to wear him down.

The glance away, back at the bartender, reminded John of the set up at the club where they'd been looking for Sebastian Moran. It wasn't hard to remember the flash of jealousy he'd felt then – and he was only mildly surprised to feel it again. Not for this bartender herself, but he saw some resemblance to Adler – a superficial one: long, dark hair pulled up and away from her face.

He tried to quell the sensation – the last thing they needed was Sherlock reading it on his face and having it start a row. She wasn't here and certainly didn't need an invitation into their relationship. _Mostly_ , John thought _, because she goes wherever she pleases_.

Still he was resolved not to let it get the better of him. Her. Mycroft. The entire situation.

Before Wales, he hadn't given Sherlock's thoughts or feelings about her any consideration, and wouldn't have worried about it if anyone else had brought it up.

Of course, before Wales, he'd been happily ignorant about the fact that she wasn't dead. It had made him wonder – more than once – if she'd had any role in Sherlock staging his own suicide, or if she'd helped him in any way afterwards.

 _But that wouldn't make sense_ , he reminded himself. Not given the way Sherlock had reacted to realizing she'd been behind the abduction – as if her renewed presence in his life had caught him entirely off guard.

It _had_ taken him three days to figure out that she'd behind it, after all. John doubted it would have taken so long if she'd been involved in the faked suicide.

Sherlock had said as much.

 _Anyway, why would she help Sherlock and then do this?_ Of course, _this_ had apparently not been about them, but about gaining access to something Mycroft was guarding carefully. Whatever that was, they still had no idea – or Mycroft wasn't saying, at any rate.

 _Stop it, John_ , he sighed to himself, eyes skimming over the other pub patrons. There were a few people seated by themselves, two at the bar, one bent over a book at a table, but most where in couples or small groups, enjoying each other's company.

He could do the same. With deliberate decision, he shelved his worries as Sherlock strode back toward him, two beers in hand. One was slid across the table to John and the detective slouched gracefully into a chair, sitting in an apparently casual but entirely deliberate way that exposed his lean body to John's view and no one else's.

"You'll get yourself arrested, looking like that."

"Like what?" Sherlock asked, feigning innocence as he sipped his beer. "There's no law against a man sitting in a pub."

"The way you sit, there should be. Lucky for you, I'm immune."

"Are you really?" Sherlock murmured.

"Mm," John replied, taking a swig of his own drink, doing his best to ignore the foot that hooked around his ankle.

"Funny thing about immunity," Sherlock said, sitting forward – without dislodging his foot – and leaning into John's space, not _quite_ close enough to really be suggestive. Unless one could see his face.

John had a splendid view of that – the slight quirk of lips, the gleam of promise in Sherlock's grey eyes.

"If you're not careful to maintain it, it can just… fade away."

"Can it really?" John asked.

"Oh yes," Sherlock assured him.

"Good thing I condition myself on a regular basis."

"Of course, there are some things that one can't develop an immunity to." An arm draped lazily over the back of his chair brought Sherlock's hand close enough to John's shoulder for an index finger to trace small, apparently innocent patterns against John's arm.

"We're in a pub, Sherlock."

"Kind of you to remind me, it might have slipped my mind otherwise."

"Happens a lot to you, does it?" John asked.

"You'd be surprised," Sherlock murmured, lips pulling into a smile against the rim of his glass. "There are certain things I am in constant need of reinforcing. Sounds, especially."

"Is that so?"

"Echoic memory relies largely on external repetition," Sherlock agreed, catching John's chin between a thumb and forefinger, closing the distance between them even more – but not enough for John's taste. "You make some _very_ intriguing sounds, John. I have to make sure my catalogue is correct."

"You– have a catalogue?"

"For everything. Believe me. Including that little hint of expression that tells me you're regretting your decision to leave the flat."

"It's only one pint," John pointed out. "Then we can go back."

"No, I don't think so," Sherlock said, sitting back again, lips curling upward at the edges. "I'd rather stay a while. Have some… _fun_."

* * *

"Why are we here?"

"Well, we're both police officers. Generally when a crime's been committed, we police officers are called in to look for clues and try and solve the damn thing."

"Thanks," Hassard said, rolling her eyes as Lestrade grinned, bundling his hands into his pockets against the night chill. "All this time on the force, and you know, I never was really sure about that. So good of you to explain. I _mean_ , why are you and I both here? What's so important that it needs two DIs?"

"The Met's decided it needs Scotland Yard's finest on this one," Lestrade replied.

"Well that explains me," Hassard said with a wicked grin. "How about you?"

"Thought I'd give a rookie DI a bit of a leg up. Show you the ropes. Lend a hand."

Hassard raised her eyebrows, a smile quirking on her lips.

"Bet she never talked to you like that when you were her partner," Donovan commented, coming up behind them from the security cordon.

"I didn't," Hassard agreed. "Then again, he'd already been a sergeant once before."

There was a snort from Donovan, incompletely quelled by the hand covering her mouth, and Hassard gave Lestrade her best angelic smile – which he had to admit, was pretty damn good.

"I'll reassign the two of you if you aren't careful," he growled.

"You don't have that kind of power," Hassard replied cheerfully. "But really, what have we got?"

"Richard Douglas – that's _Sir_ Richard Douglas, former RAF pilot, successfully climbed Everest and some place called Lhotse – oh and Kilimanjaro last summer, apparently – successful CFO, married, three kids, two at Oxford and one a practicing physician, found dead in his office by one of the building's security officers. Apparent heart attack – or that's the guard's guess."

"Two DIs and a murder squad for an apparent heart attack?"

"'Apparent' being the operative word here," Lestrade said.

"Yeah, I got that, but still."

"Sat upright at his desk like he was still alive. Not propped up. Not slumped over. Just dead."

"Right," Hassard sighed. "Let's see what we've got."

* * *

She met Lestrade's eyes before they both returned their gazes to the body sat – and it was sitting, nice and neat, like a still video image – at the desk in the rather lavish office that overlooked the river in the distance.

"Who found him?" Hassard asked, glancing over her shoulder at the necessary crowd that had gathered and were awaiting their instructions.

"I did, ma'am. Kevin Singer. I work nights in security here."

"And you're absolutely sure it was Sir Richard Douglas you found?"

"Yes, ma'am, of course," he replied, brow furrowing slightly.

"Chief financial officer, experienced mountaineer, father of three adult children?" she asked, just to be sure.

"Um, yes, ma'am."

"Can you explain to us, then, why he doesn't look a day over twenty-five?"

* * *

John stirred slightly, aware that a momentary cold spot on the other side of the bed was being replaced by a warm body as Sherlock slipped back between the sheets.

"I didn't mean to wake you," the detective murmured in the darkness.

"S'all right," John replied drowsily. "Everything okay?"

"Everything's fine," Sherlock said, lips warm against John's forehead. "Go back to sleep."


	3. Chapter 3

It was his phone buzzing gently that woke him – alone again – in the morning; John managed to quell the instinct to reach out with his left hand just in time to avoid straining anything. Sleeping without the sling was a relief, but he'd have to get used to keeping himself in check.

Sitting up, cradling his left arm gingerly, took time. Long enough for him to miss the call.

Lestrade's number on the screen heartened him somewhat, although he wondered if he shouldn't bother getting his hopes up.

He refitted himself with his sling before ringing the DI's number, familiar dull ache settling across his right shoulder where the strap rested.

"John, morning, sorry to wake you." There was a pause on the other end of the line, a hesitation broken by a quiet sigh. "Listen, we really need his help."

"Have you tried asking him?" John enquired – and he had a suspicion now as to why Sherlock had been briefly out of bed in the middle of the night.

"He said no, but this is… complicated."

"Complicated how?"

It was too early in the morning to listen to Lestrade explain – try to explain – the mysterious death of some high placed corporate executive, followed by his even more mysterious disappearance from a building replete with security cameras, and subsequent replacement of his corpse with another, younger one whose identity and relationship to the original victim they had yet to ascertain.

"Bad enough when we have a missing person," Lestrade finished. "Missing corpses? That's nothing but fodder for the tabloids."

John sighed, wishing he had a free hand to run over his face. It was right up Sherlock's street – three crimes rolled into one, not to mention a double locked-room mystery.

"I'll try. Can't promise anything, but I'll see what I can do."

"The faster the better. We're already getting pressure from the top, and it's been less than six hours."

"I'll see what I can do," John repeated, and rung off.

For a moment, all he could do was sit on the edge of the bed chewing his lower lip and wondering what the hell he would say. There were any number of arguments he could make, but approaching any of them the wrong way would lock Sherlock down tighter than a bank vault.

And he understood why Sherlock was baulking.

But refusing cases, giving into paranoia about who might be behind them… John didn't like where that could so easily lead. Better to be subjected to the kind of stony silences only Sherlock could deliver than watch the detective driving himself slowly mad with inactivity.

John shuffled into his bathrobe, unable to knot it, and padded into the living room. Sherlock was bent over some experiment at the kitchen table, his blow torch resting worryingly close to his microscope. John decided not to comment on it, and set about making himself tea – which made Sherlock leap up, fussing him into a chair, to take charge of their morning beverages.

"I've already said no," the detective said, dropping himself back into his chair, cup of tea immediately forgotten as he returned his focus to whatever it was under the microscope lens.

"I know. Greg said."

"Good," Sherlock murmured, and John withheld a sigh, exhaling slowly instead. He let a moment slip past, then another, sipping his tea as if he'd dropped the subject – but he could see by the lines of Sherlock's shoulders that the detective was waiting for more.

"Do you know what Mary did?" John asked. Sherlock deigned to glance up, giving him a scowl and an impatient sigh.

"Forged an utterly false identity for herself so thoroughly and expertly that even Mycroft didn't see through it," he began, sitting back to tick points off on his fingers. "Secured her place in your life by winning your sister's love and your affections, successfully ran a very organized and efficient criminal enterprise centred around London's elite gamblers while convincing everyone that she was a lackey for Sebastian Moran and that he, in turn, was working for Moriarty – only to be the one in charge of the entire organization. Murdered Moran because he was too troublesome but managed to keep that knowledge from becoming public. Set Jim Moriarty up to end his own life when _he_ became too problematic. Oh, and killed Ronald Adair with a single shot from the street outside his house. Among many, many other things, I'm sure."

John nodded, taking another sip of his tea.

"Yeah," he agreed. "But I mean, do you know what she did to you?"

"She didn't do anything to me, John – unless you consider her set up with Moriarty as also aimed at me, although I doubt that was her motive. She just wanted him gone. I was a tool to help her get what she wanted – so yes, I suppose, she did do that to me, but Moriarty had to be stopped regardless."

John nodded vaguely; he hadn't considered that before, but it was a good point. He added it to his mental list of things he held against Mary. He could really have gone without those nine months thinking his best friend had jumped to his death right in front of him.

"That's still not what I meant, though," he said. "Do you remember what you said to me about her, after it was all over and she'd told you that you'd never see her again? You told me she wouldn't come after us, but that didn't mean we couldn't go after her."

"Yes," Sherlock said, voice stiffening as his jaw tensed. "I remember."

"Sherlock, if we hadn't got that videotape from the club, how long do you think it would have taken you to figure out that she hadn't been abducted?"

"I don't know, John," Sherlock snapped. "There are several viable options, each of them contingent on the information we had versus the information we needed to learn–"

"Exactly," John sighed. "And in all of those, is there at least one in which we'd _still_ be trying to find her under the assumption that Moran kidnapped her?"

"Possibly, but I don't see what the point of this is–"

"My point is that she conned you. Completely. You and Mycroft both," John added, ignoring the faint flare of nostrils at Mycroft's name. "There were little traces – like the footprints and the blood – but we saw those the way she wanted us to. She fooled you, she put you on completely the wrong path, and if we hadn't got hold of that video, we might never have known that."

"Yes," Sherlock said, voice clipped. "I'm aware."

"But you still want to find her. You know she's out there, you know she could be behind anything, you know she's watching, but you don't want to see her win. You started chasing her immediately, because _you_ wanted her stopped."

He put down his cup gently, but kept his good hand encircled around it, keeping something small between them that Sherlock would see as familiar and normal.

"It took you five minutes smoking a cigarette after we got back from Wales to figure out that it was Irene Adler who'd kidnapped us, and you haven't taken a single case since then."

John saw the shut down: grey eyes suddenly clouded, expression hardening with only the barest shift of muscle.

"This is what you _do_ , Sherlock. You invented this job."

"And I hardly need someone telling me when to do it," Sherlock snapped, chair scraping predictably across the floor as he pushed himself to his feet.

"But telling you when not to do it?" John asked, and the question froze his partner as he began to move. "Since when do you let _anyone_ get away with that?" He made the meaning obvious: Mycroft had tried to prevent Sherlock from continuing with the Adair investigation – and that was only one recent interference.

Grey eyes slid back to him, verging on dangerously darkened; John shook his head and took care to keep his body language open.

"She can't be behind everything, Sherlock. Neither of them can be, really. But if she is– _if_ ," he stressed when Sherlock drew a breath to interject, "you beat her last time. Why not this time? If this leads back to her, well…"

He shrugged both shoulders, winced at the sudden snap of pain down his left arm. Sherlock was crouched in front of him before John even remembered to exhale the breath he'd instinctively held. He took a couple more slow ones for good measure as Sherlock's eyes raked over his face, and focused on the warm points of contact of hands resting on his thighs.

"Plus I'm really bloody pissed about this," John said, gesturing vaguely to his injured shoulder with his good hand. "Once was more than enough for a lifetime."

Something else passed through Sherlock's eyes – something John couldn't put a name to.

"Double murder, missing corpses, locked rooms… You _live_ for this sort of case, Sherlock."

"I'll get your painkillers," Sherlock said, pushing himself back to his feet, avoiding John's eyes. A glass of water was plunked down next to him and John pursed his lips against a sigh as Sherlock vanished from the kitchen, long-legged stride purposeful but tense.

 _You're Sherlock Holmes,_ John thought, gazing at the empty archway into the living room. _Winning is what you_ do.

Minutes crept by, drawing with them a slow realization that Sherlock probably wasn't getting painkillers. The ache in John's shoulder had settled and deepened, becoming increasingly uncomfortable, but he fidgeted, hesitating against moving.

It might make things better to go after his errant partner – but it might only make everything worse.

He closed his eyes, rubbing them with his good hand, half cursing his stupidity. Well, he'd needed to say it, hadn't he? And it was all true, no matter that Sherlock was choosing to ignore it.

He could try again another day. Something smaller, maybe. More frivolous. Another repressed sigh at that – those cases brought in money, but they did little to challenge Sherlock's intellect, to make him feel like he was clever and outpacing everyone, like he was _himself_. Brilliant. Caustic. Insightful.

Right.

The click of plastic against the table made him snap his eyes open; Sherlock had returned so quietly John hadn't heard him. Eyes darted to the bottle of ibuprofen that had been deposited beside him, and John fought down a startled reaction when a soft bundle of clothing was dumped unceremoniously into his lap.

"What's this?" he managed.

"Clothing," Sherlock replied. "You haven't got work today, but you'll still need to get dressed. You can't go to a crime scene in your pyjamas."

* * *

"Where's the body?"

"Bart's," Lestrade replied.

Sherlock stopped. Stared. Hands pressed together almost thoughtfully but eyes raking over the DI, looking for some hint of having him on. Lestrade shrugged, hands in the pockets of his jeans – not a conciliatory gesture but a practical one. Sherlock narrowed his eyes, but the glare did nothing to make the DI look abashed in any way.

"Didn't think you were coming."

"What's been done to it?"

"Him," John corrected. Sherlock wrinkled his nose – unnecessary semantics but he took the correction with a curt nod; there was that familiar warning look in John's blue eyes. He had no desire for reprimands, not right here, not right now. Balanced on the edge of the case – of the _possibilities_ and– _there_ was that feeling of elation when Lestrade gave his head a shake.

"Fingerprints," he said. "DNA. Dental records. Trying to get some idea who is he, where he's from."

"No one recognized him?" John asked.

Obvious. Sherlock turned away, half tuning out the negative answer. Surprise had driven the question more than actual curiosity. He took the moment to text Molly and have her delay any post-mortem examinations. Lestrade would have told her to do the same, but it bore repeating.

He kept an ear on the conversation behind him. Lestrade filling John in on the details. Important for anything the DI might have caught that could be telling. Position of the body would have been so informative, he'd need photographs but for now… The man who belonged in this office, not the younger imposter left dead in his chair. Missing, but his familiar haunts would mean little, corpses didn't have preferences.

But living people had enemies. Mostly minor, and being stabbed in the back was more often a figure of speech, not an actual blade – but Douglas… Accomplishments splashed across the scene – office – like bright stars: photos from the tops of Everest and Lhotse, others from Kilimanjaro. Service medals, old photographs of Douglas with comrades-in-arms. Pride of the place on the desk: dated photograph of himself with his children – now adults, but younger then, teenagers, no sullen looks, all smiles, a moment of family unity if not faked then at least projected for the camera. Caught in time, refusing to divulge the messy humanity behind it – likes, dislikes, grudges, passions, preferences, ticks. All the little tells and hints that made them real. Alive.

Douglas wasn't alive – or at least the security guard hadn't thought him so. Possibility of error, impossible to judge until he'd met the man – either of the men. A corpse would be a corpse regardless, but all he had to go on was an unknown, the word of a stranger. Never reliable, that. Panic, forgotten training in the face of instinct that was eons old.

Playing dead was a different game, but murder itself… no shortage of potential culprits here. Muddied the waters of the suspect pool.

He would clear it out soon enough.

Douglas had been found at his desk, and the imposter corpse the same. A focal point – chair dislodged, of course, to move the body. Faint impression of gurney wheels on the carpet (expensive but industrial, recently replaced, well-maintained). Sherlock circled behind the L-shape slowly, eyes alighting on the organized chaos. Not a mess, not like John described Sherlock's work areas (John and Lestrade watching now, DI with arms folded, John unable to do so, flexing the fingers of his right hand against impatience).

Computer with monitors on the section facing the door; the rest of the work kept contained to the surface to Douglas' left. The work was organized, piles and patterns discernable at a glance: what was in progress, what was priority, what had been newly delivered and was yet to be dealt with. Trinkets littering the rest of the space – aside from the family photo, small items picked up during travels, accrued over a lifetime. Model RAF aeroplane. Small carved elephant (Kilimanjaro trip), various souvenirs from Tibet and Nepal (check into where he'd trained for those climbs – and with whom). Pens – motley assortment: trade fairs, promotional packets, accidentally stolen from others, accumulated by those left in his office. Pencils used, erasers smudged with graphite.

Right handed, given the location of the small, hand thrown pottery vessel holding writing utensils.

"Meaning behind everything – except the pens – except the fountain pen, gift from firm for ten year service, not cheap, used, but carefully. Desk kept clean, dusted on a regular basis, but him not by a service, too much attention to detail, photograph where he could see it working on either side– coffee mug _not_ his– chair."

Snap of the fingers, pointing to one of the two facing the desk.

"What?" Lestrade and John asked in unison.

"John, sit." Puzzled expression in John's blue eyes; Sherlock stopped, pursing his lips slightly. The doctor's stance was too rigid, even for him. Holding back – or trying to – from pain.

"Please. It will help your shoulder."

"What do you mean about the coffee cup not being his?" Lestrade demanded as John took a seat – reluctantly. Sherlock's eyes tracked him, gauging and evaluating pain; the ibuprofen had worked, but not as well as either of them had hoped. Slow, deliberate movements were safe enough but sharp ones, like a shrug, weren't.

John's lips twitched when he sank into the seat, not quite a smile, more an acknowledgement, or almost a thanks.

"The mug?" he prompted.

"Everything on the desk has meaning. Family, travels, past or present career. Not the mug. Black, no insignia, no patterns. Impersonal. And clean."

"If he keeps his things clean, why shouldn't the mug be?," Lestrade asked.

"No hints of staining on the interior, no fingerprints on the handle or the body. There _was_ a mug here – coaster – but not this one. It's been wiped clean, carefully. Probably brand new. Something in _his_ mug someone didn't want us to see. Makes his own coffee," Sherlock nodded at the small grinder and press on the table against the wall. "Refined taste, too – imported and very specific. Efficient delivery system, no need to break in and kill him. Deliver the weapon and have him do it himself."

"I'll get a forensics unit back," Lestrade sighed. "See if we can't get anything off of it."

Waste of time, but necessary and it wasn't _his_ time being wasted.

"Bart's next, I think," Sherlock said. "Should make your day, Lestrade. At least one body there will be pleased to see you."


	4. Chapter 4

"Change of plans," Sherlock said, leaning forward to catch the cabbie's attention. "Baker Street, please."

"What?" John asked. "Why? Anything you've forgotten Molly will have at the morgue."

"We're not going for me," Sherlock replied, sitting back as the cab changed direction. "We're going for you."

"I don't need anything from home."

"You need to _be_ home, John. Your shoulder–"

"It's _fine_ , Sherlock."

"Repetition of a delusion doesn't make it true," Sherlock replied with infuriating reasonableness. "You've been holding yourself stiffly all day, which does nothing to help with the muscle strain, and you're paler than normal. Better to rest – as so you're fond of insisting when our roles are reversed."

"What about the body?" John asked.

"It will still be a body whether or not you're there to examine it, John. Molly can act as a stand in for your expertise if need be – and she's already examined it, at least superficially."

"It's really not–" John began, interrupted when Sherlock spoke over him as though he hadn't said anything at all.

"Here we are. Out you go, John. Don't bother waiting," he told the cab driver. "I'll catch another. Come on, quickly."

With a defeated sigh, John eased himself out of the car, letting Sherlock unlock the front door. The detective kept his pace slow on the stairs and John was tempted to drag his heels even more than he already was. To see if Sherlock would notice.

Of course he would.

"I'm really all right to go," he tried again once inside their flat – and was predictably ignored as Sherlock vanished into the bathroom, re-emerging with an adhesive heating patch and ibuprofen, and shooing John onto the sofa.

The sling was removed so John's jumper and shirt could come off; Sherlock moved with a focused grace that was almost disappointing. The cases would always take priority – John preferred it that way, because that was Sherlock – but he'd grown used to causing at least a little bit of distraction when he was half naked.

There was _something_ this time, but it was all practiced efficiency, Sherlock playing the role of nurse expertly.

"Two ibuprofen every four hours," Sherlock said, as if John didn't know – or couldn't be trusted to remember. "With the right amount of care, you should avoid any additional damage."

John almost snorted; this from a man who considered sword fights or jumping from roofs as occupational hazards. He wondered if he could use this against Sherlock the next time the detective was injured.

Probably not.

"I'll text you should I need your expertise," Sherlock assured him, bending for a swift kiss, and then he was gone, disappearing down the stairs in a swish of heavy black wool.

John sat silently, at the ready, watching the door for several minutes until he realized he was waiting for Sherlock to come back. To bound up the stairs like he had that very first day, unconcerned by the cane that slowed John down, dragging the doctor irrevocably in his wake.

But this was different. His shoulder injury was one of damaged muscle and bone, not a psychological manifestation. The pain then had been just as real as it was now, but Sherlock wouldn't challenge it. That wouldn't help the problem – and they both knew it. Time would heal it, if he gave it proper care.

John sat back into the cushions, adjusting his arm enough to rest on a pillow, aware of the distant sounds of the street below as they began to filter back into the silence. It seemed like another world. One right outside of his front door but removed from him, as if he had no place in it. Or in the cab Sherlock was surely taking across the city, on his phone with both Molly and Lestrade, demanding information, issuing orders.

He pulled his own phone out, checking to see if Sherlock had texted, even though it was far too soon for that. The silence inside deepened, accentuating his awareness of being here, alone, without any purpose, and John turned on the television, finding the loudest and brightest programme he could.

* * *

Brown eyes – always slightly startled – tracked his movements when he came in, darting to the empty space behind him that Sherlock felt like an affront. Flicker of confusion at the absence, flicker of guilt at being caught in a situation no more intimate than planning dinner.

"Resting his shoulder," Sherlock said to offset the obvious question poised on two sets of lips. "Lestrade, would you stop monopolizing my pathologist?"

" _Your_ pathologist?" the DI snorted. The curl of his lips and light in his eyes made a joke of it, but Molly's expression was more shuttered, serious. A quick glance, perhaps a silent apology, and she relaxed slightly.

"Our replacement Sir Richard Douglas needs some attention – and although I suspect Amanda Hassard has seen her fair share of dead bodies, police work is her area of expertise, not post-mortem examination."

"How is it that you remember her first name?" Lestrade demanded.

Sherlock paused in the act of exchanging his coat for a pair of nitrile gloves.

"Why shouldn't I?" he asked.

"You can't remember mine," Lestrade replied.

"'Course I remember yours," Sherlock muttered, fixing his gaze on the cuffs of the purple gloves covering his hands, ignoring the derisive snort.

"What is it then?"

"No time for this," Sherlock replied briskly, and there was a smile from Molly, a glimmer of laughter dancing in her dark eyes. "We've got someone without a name – at least without a name we know. In your own time, of course," he added, vanishing down the hall.

Another small smile – a knowing one – greeted him. The same glance past his shoulder, searching for someone who wasn't there. The lack of surprise at John's absence made it stand out even more somehow, awareness of a cold space behind him – _of cold space all around him nothing but space John's name vanishing into the windy darkness_ – and a deep breath didn't expel the memory, the sensation, but at least shelved it, locked in that bright, hot room where he dared not go.

"'Morning," Hassard said, reality returned with the sound of her voice. Late morning for her – same pale circles under her eyes that Lestrade had, nothing serious, signs of long hours of work that went with the job. Pausing in the act of writing something, left handed. In need of a coffee but wouldn't take one to add to the three she'd already had or there'd be caffeine jitters and the note taking would suffer, although not as much as the concentration.

"Sir Richard Douglas," Sherlock mused as Lestrade and Molly joined them in the cold room, Molly taking up the expert's stance next to the gurney, Lestrade standing back, a step closer to Hassard – professional alignment rather than a personal one.

"The younger," Hassard said.

"What?" Lestrade asked.

"Yes of course," Sherlock replied, saw it immediately. A quick movement had the sheet off, billowing white folded under control. Faint gasp from Molly, raised eyebrow from Hassard, muttered comment from Lestrade.

_Looking at naked men?_ John's voice in his head but sly, jovial.

"It's a body," Sherlock said out loud, displacing all reactions. "Excellent physical shape, particularly strong thigh and calf muscles but not at the expense of the rest of his body – a runner and a cyclist. But not exclusively. Training. Calluses on his feet – not just on the soles but sides of the toes and the heels – used to wearing shoes and boots for some kind of physical activity. Calluses on the hands, too, palms and fingertips – climber. Autopsy will reveal a very healthy cardiovascular system," a glance at Molly, who gave an automatic nod. "Richard Douglas – the _real_ Richard Douglas was an experienced mountaineer. You saw the list – Everest, Lohtse, Kilimanjaro. Those would be the ones of note, of course he would have trained. The Alps, the Himalayas."

"So, what," Lestrade asked, "someone's got a grudge against mountain climbers?"

"Possible but unlikely. Both too broad a category and too narrow. Why _these_ _two_ men? Why steal Douglas' body and leave this one in its place?"

"We don't know Douglas _is_ a body," Lestrade pointed out.

"Of course we do," Sherlock scoffed. "You met the security guard, Singer. Checked the body carefully – alarmed but thorough. No pulse, no breathing. He waited and _counted_ three full minutes looking for a pulse before leaving to locate his colleague. His _idiot_ colleague."

_Forgets a radio when he leaves to use the toilet. Stupid. And now unemployed._

"Lucky it _was_ Singer who found the body," Hassard commented. Lips twitched – despite himself – at the derision that slipped into her voice.

"Although now we have to find it again," Sherlock murmured, half to himself, half to the silent space where John ought to have been. "Molly, a toxicology report will determine the cause of this man's death – I suspect when we find Douglas' body, we will also find the same poison was used to kill him."

"But why?" Lestrade demanded, curt, angry gesture toward the body on the slab. "Why these two? What connects them?"

"I don't know," Sherlock said. Bright grin, meeting Lestrade's glower. "Let's see if his family knows, shall we?"

* * *

The sound of Sherlock's ring cut through the chafing banality of the programme and John felt a sharp stab of relief as he dug the mobile from his jeans pocket. Sherlock had sent a lengthy text – including a photograph of the corpse – with the customary flurry of information that had led him to the conclusion that the mystery man was also a mountain climber.

_Is that how they're connected?_ John sent back.

_That is the question_ , Sherlock replied.

John waited for more, but it seemed nothing was forthcoming. _Well_ , he told himself firmly, shutting off the yappy programme, relishing the returning silence, _you don't have to be completely useless_.

His shoulder might be preventing him from running around London with a lunatic, but he could at least help out from here. He had a photo of the replacement body, and a laptop. Richard Douglas – the real one – shouldn't be too difficult to find online.

He was right about that.

An hour of searching left him with an aching shoulder and a niggling feeling in the pit of his stomach that he didn't get out enough. It wasn't just the pictures from his Himalayan climbs – which John had found himself caught up in, forgetting a few times he was meant to be looking for Douglas and the mystery man together – but the fundraising events, the talks, the benefits, the galas.

The surface looked brilliant – Douglas always smiling, and his wife, too, when they were photographed together – but there was always something beneath that surface.

_Well of course_ , he told himself. _Someone went to a lot of trouble to kill him._ He asked himself why – for the thousandth time – and wondered what Sherlock would make of all of this. If he'd go talk to the family and strip away that veneer immediately. Or if it went further than that, if Sherlock would have to push for more information, dig deeper to find the cracks.

With a sigh, John pushed himself to his feet, rotating his good shoulder carefully, tilting his neck side-to-side. Sitting in one position for so long hadn't helped his injured shoulder, and he topped up his ibuprofen, even though he wasn't due another dose yet.

_Nothing online with Douglas and the other man_ , he sent to Sherlock. There was no immediate reply; John waited another minute, then two, lips pursed, gaze fixed on his phone.

_He's busy_ , he told himself. He'd wanted Sherlock to work, after all. It was hardly the detective's fault John was stuck here, nursing an injured shoulder.

The blame for that rested squarely on someone else.

_Right,_ John thought firmly. _Enough._ It didn't do him any good to start down that path – and it certainly didn't heal his shoulder. He'd done what he could to help Sherlock on the case, and until he got some new information from the detective, he could keep busy with some lighter tasks. No sense moping about, it wouldn't change anything.

He sorted through the post that had been abandoned by Sherlock in its customary "let John deal with it" pile – which included almost everything that came to the detective, too. John had never been able to sort out Sherlock's system for opening his own post. There seemed to be no pattern to his decision, although John strongly suspected his partner would claim otherwise and pretend John just wasn't clever enough to pick it up.

Most of it was fan mail or thank-yous; John sorted through the former for the gems, which included a very skilled line drawing of Sherlock in the hated hat. He folded that to keep for himself, and considered scanning it to put on the blog. The thank-yous he left out. Sherlock usually had the grace to at least glance at them, and John suspected they secretly pleased him – not for the gesture itself, but for being reminded how brilliant he was.

_The frailty of genius_ , John thought with a slight smile that vanished at the unbidden, darker association.

Who had been Adler's audience when she'd had them abducted? Them? Mycroft? The public?

Slight of hand – what had _she_ been doing when everyone's gaze had been diverted?

_The question of the hour_. Every hour since they returned, it seemed. John wondered what Sherlock and Mycroft had each found. If they'd kept each other informed. If they'd tell him if he asked.

Mycroft certainly wouldn't. Sherlock… John wanted to think so.

"Okay," he told himself, voice sounding too loud in the silence of the flat. "Focus, Watson." There were still letters to see to.

Sherlock didn't get much in the way of cases via actual post, but there were a handful of written missives that came each week. John read them over, smoothing each letter open and leaving them beside where Sherlock's laptop was currently residing. If prodded – or bored enough – the detective _would_ read them.

He rescued the one from the floor, too, frowning at it, bemused. It had been written in French, so Sherlock had been translating for his benefit. John jotted down what he remembered about the gemstone and the fact that none of the investigations had turned up anything, and left it with the rest.

Sherlock's inbox probably wanted clearing, too, but John stayed away from that unless the need was really dire; accessing the detective's email usually resulted in retaliation in the form of hacking his blog.

That done, he gave himself a few minutes to sit, propping his bad arm on one of the pillows Sherlock had bought. The antsy feeling crept back in and John shook it off by taking himself down to Mrs. Hudson's.

They'd been remiss about changing much of anything down here, and it certainly couldn't be rented the way it was. A few things had gone up to their flat, but a few things had come down, too. Out of necessity, they'd cleared the fridge early on and had taken whatever food they wanted, binning what was open and unusable and donating the rest. Sherlock had moved some of his experiments down to the empty fridge, which gave John no end of relief when he opened theirs and wasn't presented with half-decayed body parts next to the leftovers.

Still, the ground floor flat remained Mrs. Hudson's even in death, with all of her belongings where she'd left them the day John had first taken her to the hospital.

He supposed they could hire someone to come and clean it out, but it felt disloyal. He wasn't worried about what might be found here – Sherlock had seen to the 'herbal soothers' immediately – he just didn't want a stranger rooting through her belongings, as if they were no more than pointless things taking up space. Everything in here had been _hers_. Had meant something. Had been useful or important in some way.

He'd start with the clothes, he decided. Neither he nor Sherlock had any use for those, so there could be no disagreement as to whether or not they were kept. John made two piles, one of jumpers, cardigans, coats, warm socks, hats and scarves – all of which would go to Sherlock's homeless network. The rest would go to the Oxfam shop.

It didn't take long to clear the closets and the drawers and put everything into black rubbish bags, but when John was finished, the bedroom seemed hollow, unable to absorb sound the way it had been before he'd begun. One at a time, he took the bags to the common hall, dumping them near the door to deal with later. Old wood creaked and moaned beneath his feet as he climbed the stairs to the first floor again; John locked the flat door behind him and escaped to the cocoon of downy pillows and blankets that was their bed to shut out everything else with sleep.

* * *

"Pointless," Sherlock snapped once back outside Douglas' home, flipping his collar up and ignoring John's internal commentary at the action. Lestrade snorted, Hassard only raised an eyebrow. "And why are there two of you?"

"Because, sadly, we're not the same person," Hassard replied, unlocking the vehicle. Sherlock hesitated – the back of a police car had some unfortunate memories associated with it that were surprisingly difficult to delete.

Nor did he have any desire for the media to photograph him in the back seat of a car occupied by two police officers.

"It's an unmarked vehicle," Hassard pointed out. "You can pretend I'm your chauffeur."

"Don't give him ideas," Lestrade warned. Sherlock shot him a glower and settled into the seat behind her – she was shorter than her former partner, giving him much needed leg room. "He'll be calling you at all hours next."

"Who says he doesn't?" she murmured, twisting in her seat as she backed down the drive, catching Sherlock's eye with a quick smile.

"Best not let John hear you say that," Sherlock replied.

"Oh, John's not afraid of me," Hassard said, attention diverted away from him to watch for oncoming traffic. She missed reaction he couldn't quite quell, but Sherlock found himself hoping like hell Lestrade hadn't caught it either – or had misattributed it to surprise.

"Was she always like this?" Sherlock demanded, stepping away carefully from the meaning beneath the words Hassard hadn't intended, using the tool – superficial banter – she'd given him.

"She's much better since she met me," Lestrade replied, cocking a grin at Hassard's mock scowl. "I've got that effect on people."

"You wish," Hassard muttered, but there was laughter in her voice.

"Anything, Sherlock?" Lestrade asked.

"They weren't lying," Sherlock said. "At least, not about not recognizing our young Richard Douglas."

"Then about what?" Hassard asked.

"Do you really think any family is that happy?"

"Not happy anymore," she pointed out. "And yes, I do."

"You've been a police officer for nearly twenty years. Surely some sense of cynicism must have rubbed off."

"Happiness isn't a _thing_ ," Hassard said. "You don't win it like a medal. Life changes, you change with it. Otherwise, what's the point?"

"Who says there needs to be one?" Sherlock murmured.

"We could sit here and wax philosophical," Lestrade said, "but we've still got a missing corpse. _That's_ definitely something that's not going to change unless we do something about it."


	5. Chapter 5

"Stop."

She started, breath caught for a tight moment before the voice registered as Sherlock's, and Molly was able to exhale, lowering the scalpel carefully. Sherlock took up nearly the whole height of the doorway, all tall darkness and pale skin, but he seemed somehow not entirely there. He moved differently when John wasn't with him – and differently still when John _couldn't_ be with him.

Molly wondered if he was even aware of that.

"I was just about to do the autopsy," she said, gesturing vaguely with the knife to the body on the table.

"Obviously," Sherlock replied, arching one eyebrow.

With a sigh, Molly put the scalpel down and removed her mask.

"I need to see his clothes." Sherlock said.

"His clothes?" she asked.

"The ones he was found in at any rate. And I'll need your help dressing him."

* * *

It certainly wasn't the strangest request Sherlock had ever made she considered as they manhandled an unresponsive corpse into the suit.

Helping him fake his suicide definitely took the cake – it still woke her in the middle of the night sometimes, watching him fall past the window, coat billowing like useless wings. She could still feel the strain in her arm and shoulder muscles as she pushed a corpse out of that same window after him.

But there were other things. Things so far removed from that desperate act that sometimes she wasn't sure they had been for the same man.

Like the dog. He'd asked her to perform surgery to remove a key from its stomach, and Molly had baulked – she wasn't a vet. She wasn't even used to living human bodies, let alone animals. Sherlock had insisted, and she still considered it a miracle that the dog had survived at all. Sherlock had, with unusual generosity, called it a testament to her medical skill.

The key had apparently been, well, the key to solving that particular crime – but what Molly really remembered was how gentle Sherlock had been with the animal when no one else had been there but her.

_This_ was all business – same as the suit – and she supposed she should be used to it, but undressing was often easier. Especially when she could simply cut the clothing off. She hadn't this time. Not for cases like these. Not when it might be important.

"What do you think?" Sherlock asked as she straightened a lapel. Molly looked up, meeting clear grey eyes, an expectant expression awaiting an answer. A deep breath and she smoothed her hands down the front of her lab coat, refocusing on the corpse.

_Just look_ , she told herself, swallowing against the anxiety that sharp gaze always brought, as if she had to measure up to something she wasn't sure she ever could. He'd have all the answers – she _knew_ that, and she wished – for a moment – she could let it slide past the way Greg did.

_You know enough_ , she told herself with a faint grimace.

"He looks bad." The words slipped past her lips unbidden, surprising her with the realization.

"Bad how?" Sherlock demanded.

"The suit doesn't fit him, not properly, like someone bought it for him but he never had it altered. It's too… big. I think."

"In the shoulders," Sherlock agreed, and she saw it suddenly, the place where it was _wrong_ , because the sleeves were the right length, and so were the trousers. The jacket fit better at the waist, but the shoulders were too big; what her mind had identified as simply from the body being supine was a fault with the suit itself, not the wearer.

"These aren't _his_ clothes," the detective continued. "The clothes in which he was found, yes, but everything is brand new. No wear marks anywhere you'd expect – around the buttons, the collar, the cuffs. Shirt still has two parallel creases in it from being folded and although there are bits of dust on the jacket and trousers, those come from simply being worn. No hairs anywhere. No wear or marks or dirt on the shoes, either. Unless this was the most meticulous man in the world who also happened to have no sense of his own size, these clothes were never his and he was changed either immediately before or immediately after he died."

"I think you've got most meticulous man all locked up," Molly said, and there was a pause before Sherlock looked up, as if the words needed a moment to register, but then there was a smile – a real one, unexpected reaction to an unexpected comment – and she felt like it was the first time she'd seen _him_ since he'd returned from Wales.

"Even I can't be that fastidious," he disagreed. "I suspect he was changed after he died – no wrinkles or small tears in the clothing that would indicate a struggle and," Sherlock leaned down, sniffing the fabric carefully, starting at the collar, working his way down one sleeve, "it doesn't smell worn."

He pulled away, features creasing, and repeated the olfactory trail back up the dead man's arm.

"Doesn't smell of anything at all except maybe… No, tell me what you think."

A wrist held carefully extended the arm; Molly leaned over the table, doing as instructed, closing her eyes to better focus.

"It smells… damp?"

"Yes," Sherlock said, and there was a touch of relief in his voice – or maybe she was imagining it. "It's wool, so it would retain moisture better than other fabrics, but the suit itself isn't damp," a finger and thumb traced across a lapel, frown lining his features, then a small shake of the head. "If he'd worn this – especially if he'd worn this before he'd died, when blood was still circulating – it would smell like him. It hasn't been damp – not terribly damp – the past few days. Raining now, but that would hardly affect anything stored in here… But the suit's not dirty, either."

"Maybe he was kept in something?" Molly suggested.

"Yes, but what? And where? The building were Douglas worked has a very efficient environmental system."

"Well we know he's not from there. No one recognized him."

"Yes," Sherlock murmured, gaze focused on the dead man, what had once been tanned or darker skin now faded to a breathless white. "Who are you?" he asked, voice distant, and Molly knew she was barely there anymore, not to him, "And how did you get here?"

* * *

"Another morgue?"

"What?" Molly asked.

"We've been trying to locate him in relation to Richard Douglas, but there seems to be no connection, and so the question is: where did he come from? What if he came to us from another morgue?"

"But we'd know," she protested. "Wouldn't we?"

"Would we?" Sherlock asked in return. "You estimated his time of death within a few hours of when Richard Douglas was originally found in his office – but what if our mystery man has been kept cold to delay our estimates?"

"But that wouldn't explain the way his clothes smell."

"He might have been stored at a morgue temporarily and then moved."

"But someone would have reported a corpse missing! They can't just get up and walk out!"

Sherlock's lips quirked, a wry smile, almost cold around the edges. Molly resisted the temptation to take a step back – from what, she wasn't sure. The body separated them anyway, and Sherlock was between her and the door.

"Usually," she amended.

"I tend to be a very unusual case," he replied.

Molly nodded, breaking his gaze to look at the man on the gurney, telling herself not to chew on her lip but catching herself doing it anyway. The flow had been broken; she sought desperately for something to pick it back up.

"How are things with…" Sherlock trailed off, and despite herself, Molly felt a stab of humour.

"Greg."

"With Greg."

"Good. They're good. Um– getting better. It's slow but I think– well I hope– it's good."

"Molly. I am sorry."

She met his eyes again, startled by the unexpected sincerity, managing a brief nod.

"It's not your fault. It needed– I mean _we_ needed to do it. Jim needed to be stopped, right?"

"He did," Sherlock agreed, and she wished she could feel the certainty he so clearly did – not about the need to catch Jim, but for everything else it had entailed.

"Not that it really made much difference," she muttered without intending to, taken aback by the bitterness in her own voice. The immediate aghast apology – because if it didn't matter, that meant everything Sherlock had suffered had been pointless, and _that_ couldn't be true, she wouldn't let it – evaporated when his fingers tightened on the edge of the gurney, taut whiteness at his nails and knuckles.

"I didn't mean–" she forced herself to say.

"I know what you meant," Sherlock snapped, piercing grey eyes finding her like a laser sight, holding her hostage for a moment before he exhaled slowly, a deliberate relaxation. "And what you didn't mean."

For a moment, she thought he'd say something more, but he gave the impression of shaking his head without moving, and the moment was gone.

"Do the autopsy and the toxicology," he said, voice clipped, all business again, no outward hint of the anger – _rage_ – she'd just seen. "I'm going to see if any of the other morgues in the city are in the habit of losing their corpses."

* * *

_Frozen_. Or, technically, refrigerated, Sherlock supposed. Kept right around freezing, wreaking havoc with cellular decay after he'd been thawed. Molly's analysis supported the conclusions he'd drawn from the tissue sample she'd provided.

Either way, it meant proper storage. Not necessarily a morgue, but someone had to know what they were doing with the corpse. No evidence from any of the other morgues in the city – or even in the surrounding areas – was missing a body, but whoever had murdered the younger man and Douglas had been efficient enough to swap them places in a very narrow window of time in a building well protected by security cameras.

That meant skill – and it also meant more than one culprit. One murderer, perhaps but he – the probability that the killer was male was high given typical statistics and the physical demands of moving bodies so quickly – would have needed accomplices.

Morgue records could be removed and covered up. Fingerprints, DNA – those could be erased from databases. With enough talent and cleverness, police reports could be eliminated as well, but it was much more problematic to do so if there was an officer somewhere looking into a disappearance.

Why _hadn't_ anyone missed him? Surely someone would have noticed by now. Far too long a delay replying to a text or an email, a lack of a status update, failure to show up for work or for social plans made in advance.

And how could friends and family and colleagues be prevented from reporting him missing?

_Foreign national_ , Sherlock thought. _On holiday. Killed somewhere else and moved here._

The first two weren't entirely likely – there would still be records somewhere, passports, visas, a hotel booking if he'd been here as a tourist. Someone would know him, would recognize him.

"Who are you?" Sherlock murmured, answered by silence from the body on the slab, covered now to hide Molly's neat, precise stitching. "And why did die?"

"I can tell you how, at least," a female voice answered. Sherlock looked up smoothly, unperturbed; he'd heard the footsteps approaching down the corridor, recognized them well enough by now. Hassard held up a file as proof before passing it to him.

"Belladonna," she said. "Which tells us nothing."

"Uncontrolled and could be grown by anyone. Even if Douglas turns out to have been poisoned by the same, we can't trace it."

"Exactly," Hassard sighed, then paused, distracted, as her phone rang. "Yeah, Greg? I'm with him now. Okay, we'll be right there." She hung up, gesturing for the file back. "He wants us at the Yard. Apparently they've found something on the surveillance footage."

* * *

John stirred, grimacing slightly as the ache in his shoulder announced itself again. He lay still, half hoping it would fade to a level he could ignore, but it seemed to grow as the silence in the flat pressed in around him. John shuffled out of bed, downed more ibuprofen, and wrapped himself in Sherlock's tartan dressing gown. It smelled of the detective and made him feel a touch less alone.

_Stop feeling so bloody sorry for yourself,_ he thought, an unfelt scowl crossing his face. This was only one case – and it was nothing compared to the nine months in which he'd thought Sherlock was dead, nor the time between returning home from Afghanistan and meeting the detective.

The sensation was the same thing, and he couldn't quite shake it, no matter how firmly he spoke to himself.

_You know where he is_ , John reminded himself. This wasn't Wales. He wasn't alone, cut off from everything, fighting the idea that Sherlock was dead with each breath, which each step that had been unknowingly taking him back to the one thing he'd been really missing.

_Get the fuck out of my head,_ he thought, speaking to nothing more than a memory, the image of a woman who'd faded until she'd been almost gone, only to snap back. Like a trap being sprung. "And my house," he added into the silence around him. "You're not welcome."

The sensation ebbed, leaving him alone in a house that felt like his again. Everything here was his or Sherlock's – _theirs_ , he told himself. The word seemed to spread warmth through the flat, taking the edge off of Sherlock's temporary absence.

With a curt, resolved nod, John set aside the self-pity and switched on the telly before setting into his chair with his laptop. He might not be officially on the case, but he was still the blogger, and had more than enough time to make notes on what he already knew.


	6. Chapter 6

"The footage was faked."

"How?" Hassard's voice was faded background noise as Sherlock leaned toward the monitors, eyes flickering over images that didn't seem to shift as seconds slipped by on the internal counter, keeping track of empty time.

"It's hard to see unless you're looking for it," the tech replied. "But…"

"There," Sherlock said, finger hovering over the screen.

"Exactly."

"What is it?" Hassard asked, leaning past the tech on the other side, eyes narrowed in concentration.

"Shadow," Sherlock said before the tech could speak. "Nothing you would see if you were security monitoring the footage for intruders."

"Right," the tech agreed. "Judging by the way the light plays, I'd say an office door was open when this was shot, but if we go back," the video was rewound until the shadow darkened, "here it would be closed. Since no one else was on that floor at the time, this can't be continuous. With the angle and the position of this camera, the light wouldn't be coming from Douglas' office but one down the hall."

"In which direction?" Sherlock demanded.

The tech grinned.

"Spot on. Toward the service lift. I checked the cameras monitoring the lift as well, and they've been tampered with. So have the ones in the parking garage. Whoever did this knew what they were doing – and had reliable access to the security footage."

"But not the eye for detail you have," Hassard murmured.

"And who would have that sort of access?" Sherlock asked, glancing back at Lestrade. "Perhaps a security guard who conveniently forgot his radio when using the toilet at the precise time Singer discovered Douglas' body?"

A sigh from Lestrade as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Right. We'll go round him up. _Not_ you!" he added, a warning finger jabbed at Sherlock, who met it with a glare. "Consulting doesn't extend to interrogating suspects."

"I'll just leave you to it then, shall I?" Sherlock asked coolly.

"Or you could use that genius brain of yours and figure out how they got a body in and a body out without being seen by any of the street cameras, and without being recorded by the parking gate."

"They hijacked the building's system," Sherlock pointed out. "No reason they couldn't have done it with the surrounding cameras." But the tech was already shaking his head; a quick, assessing glance confirmed his denial. He'd looked, knowing what to look _for_ , and hadn't found the same nearly seamless disruption in that footage.

"You can go lurk and sneak around a building, leaving everyone wondering what the hell you're doing," Lestrade said with a grin. "Should be right up your street."

* * *

Dusk had begun to creep across the city when he left the Yard, stepping into the street to hail a taxi. The driver was subject to a quick evaluation, face scanned rapidly through Sherlock's memory – a habit he'd developed after unwittingly hiring Moriarty's cab. But there was only disinterest.

Not even a _flicker_ of recognition. It annoyed him now, the way it had annoyed him to be so readily identified on the way to the pub with John the night before. Tedious the way people knew his face when he didn't want them to, but remained woefully ignorant when it might have been useful. Or at least mildly gratifying.

Sherlock shut the door with a decisive click, ignoring the faint, habitual protest at the back of his mind that he wait, give John a chance to catch up. The cabbie accepted the address with a brief nod, pulling into traffic smoothly. Lights shifted, buildings slid by; Sherlock catalogued their route and the travel time effortlessly, almost thoughtlessly. Habit developed over the years, only barely affected by a nine month absence.

Habit, too, to check his phone for messages from John. There were some, requests for information that Sherlock didn't have – or didn't have time to send – and updates on the lack of progress on John's end. Nostrils flared slightly, unfelt and unacknowledged frustration like a physical discomfort below the level of conscious observation.

Three days with John's fate a complete unknown to him. An ache in an old injury that turned into a radiolucent line on an x-ray. Surprise from John at his reaction, because John _wouldn't_ see beyond a professional, medical evaluation. Yes, he was annoyed at the inconvenience and unhappy with the pain, but it wasn't only the injury that provoked the reaction.

They had been extraordinarily lucky. A wrong step, bad weather, more serious injuries… Sherlock was no stranger to skirting death – he'd thrown himself off a building, plan or no plan – but that… A situation beyond his experience. Beyond Lestrade's. Not entirely beyond John's, but John had been alone.

He'd been alone in the mountains and had fallen.

Alternate scenarios were pointless – and no matter how often he repeated that fact until it became something of a mantra, a firm reality that his mind ought to accept, there was no denying what might have happened.

It hadn't, but it might have.

There had been no guarantees when they'd been dumped, drugged and without resources, in the wilderness. Players in a game whose outcomes weren't known.

Whose outcomes _she_ couldn't have known.

It hadn't been about them. Hadn't even been about Mycroft, but about something Mycroft had.

Perspective was everything. Something had been taken from his brother, but something had also been taken from _him_. Whatever Mycroft had lost probably wasn't inconsequential – but neither was it important enough to him to have noticed, not immediately, and Sherlock knew full well his brother still hadn't identified the information.

John's loss had caused an immediate impact, one of the first things to filter into a drugged, disoriented awareness. He had felt it through the cold and pain and the haze left by whatever had been used to poison his mind.

Still felt it now, an empty seat beside him in the cab, a cold silence dogging his heels where there should have been the warmth of a familiar presence, sarcastic comments, medical analyses Sherlock trusted.

Surely an injured shoulder wouldn't prevent John from poking around a building that was equipped with lifts.

It would be far preferable to the inexperienced constable Lestrade had assigned to meet him there – the DI had an inappropriate sense of humour, and Sherlock wondered if it were directed at him or the PC. Or both.

Decided, he leaned forward to catch the cabbie's attention, and changed their course to Baker Street.

* * *

"Get out of my house."

Enthusiasm had vanished – sublimated – at his brother's presence; Sherlock didn't allow for the space of a breath between barging through the door and the command, stepping back sharply, leaving enough room for his insufferable sibling to make use of the exit.

"Your house?" Mycroft remained stubbornly seated in Sherlock's chair, legs crossed at the knee, deliberately relaxed posture betraying no hint that the order would be obeyed.

"Yes," Sherlock spat. "Get out."

"I seem to remember Mrs. Hudson deeding the property to John."

"And you know full well that Harry drew up all the proper legal documents, which have been signed and notarized and approved, giving us _both_ ownership. _Go_ , Mycroft."

"Or what?" Mycroft asked, voice exasperatingly calm, level. _Deceptive_ , because there was something behind the pale eyes that they shared that gave away his ire – and that sparked the same in Sherlock, accompanied by that infuriating powerlessness, the knowledge of wisdom and intelligence he'd never achieve, whose absence was held over him, held against him like a character flaw.

Like the transgression of misplaced action, misguided action – saving a life that had nearly cost him the one he valued most. A quick glance at John returned a warning look. Against arguing, against Mycroft's presence.

"You'll call the police?" his brother continued. "Not very fraternal of you, Sherlock."

"You're going to lecture me–" he spat, but John's voice speaking his name, surgeon's hands held up, palms out, appealing for calm.

"If you came here to start a row, Mycroft, you can just leave," the doctor said. "We've got a case, and we haven't got time for whatever guilt trip you want to lay on him right now."

Mycroft raised his eyebrow, the same coolly condescending expression – just hinting at restrained impatience – that Sherlock had endured the whole of his life. Anger tightened the muscles along his shoulders, in the backs of his hands, resentment that it should be turned against John.

"John, I appreciate you feel some sense of entitlement toward my brother–"

"No," John snapped before Sherlock could even draw a breath. " _You_ do, Mycroft – and it's a piss poor way to treat someone you should damn well care about it. We share a house and a bed and each other's power of attorney," Sherlock felt a little smug about the surprise there, because he'd worked hard to ensure it, "but I don't own him or think he owns me because of it. He's not your baby brother anymore, so you can quit with the bloody attitude."

If Mycroft looked taken aback, it was only briefly, an expression so fleeting anyone else might have missed it – but Sherlock had been watching, catching it when grey eyes were returned to meet his.

"Perhaps I would, if he displayed better judgement."

"Right, that's it," John snapped. "Out. Get out of my house. _Now_."

"He has something for us," Sherlock said, holding up a hand without breaking his brother's even gaze. "Don't you?"

"What?" John spat.

He met his partner's eyes briefly and John sighed, throwing up his good hand in disgust, but the sharp shake of his head signalled his acquiescence – for now.

"You know what was taken," Sherlock said.

"As a matter of fact, no," Mycroft replied. "Although I suspect I know who took it."

"We already know that," Sherlock retorted.

"We know who's behind it," Mycroft corrected, producing a memory stick from the recesses of an inner pocket. "But not who did the actual pilfering. This has some answers – although raises more questions, I'm afraid. When I say I suspect I know who took the information, it's somewhat misleading."

"Misleading how?" John asked.

"Watch it," Mycroft said. "It will be easier to explain."

Security footage from the building that housed Mycroft's office – at least the official one, where he held meetings, and the only one which Sherlock had ever been permitted to see. Nothing out of the ordinary, men and women in business attire criss-crossing the floor, two security officers at the main desk, keeping a sharp eye out, signing in a courier.

"That's him," Mycroft said.

"Who?" Sherlock asked.

"The courier. The young man you have in the morgue. Or rather, it's supposed to be."

"Keeping track of me?" Sherlock snarled, ignoring John's surprise in favour of the familiar indignation.

"You do generally operate in Britain's best interests, and it's useful to keep an eye out, yes," Mycroft replied. "That," he nodded at the screen, "is supposed to be Karam Sarraf, twenty-four, born in Exmouth, raised in Bournemouth from the age of six when his father was transferred for work, moved to London at the age of nineteen, employed since then as a… bicycle courier," the note of disdain for the physical activity wasn't entire suppressed, and Sherlock felt rather than saw the smile that curled on John's lips despite everything, "which left him more than enough time for his true passion, which was… spelunking, I'm told it's called."

Sherlock raised his eyebrows, filing the information away, crossing off one mystery: why Douglas and their now-identified mystery man had never been spotted together. Similar signatures left on the body from similar activities that went in entirely opposite directions.

"Known as 'Kipper' to his friends for reasons I cannot fathom, and last registered signing into the building twelve days ago. While his company had him listed as being on holiday."

"Twelve days?" John asked, but Sherlock didn't need the confirmation for the quick mental arithmetic; two days after their abrupt disappearance from London, before their paths had converged.

"And that, of course, isn't him," Mycroft said. "Oh, it looks like him, superficially, but, it's not. Close enough that the altered identification photo would draw no suspicion."

"You saw him?" Sherlock demanded.

"No," Mycroft said. "But I wasn't there that day. Something else was demanding my attention, if you'll recall. He signed in at two-oh-seven in the afternoon, signed back out eighteen minutes later."

"That's a long time to drop off a package," John said.

"But not long to root through someone's office," Sherlock replied. "He knew what he was looking for."

"Evidently," Mycroft replied. _I wish I did_ , Sherlock heard as unspoken subtext, a flash of surprise momentarily grounding him at how blindsided Mycroft had been.

"It was something you didn't know you had," Sherlock said, realization coming only with the words, catching a frown from his brother. "It's why you haven't been able to identify the information as missing or copied. A lot of information passes across your desk, Mycroft – even you can't possibly process it all immediately. Particularly if it seems innocuous."

"I had thought of that," Mycroft sighed.

"So if this fake Sarraf stole something from you, why is Richard Douglas dead, too?" John asked.

"An excellent question," Mycroft said. "I suspect the answer will lead you nicely back to the reason behind your little Welsh adventure."

" _You're_ the reason for that," Sherlock snapped.

"The responsible party, then," Mycroft replied. "We're running this false Sarraf's image through out databases, and I'll be sure to let you know when we find something." Sherlock's disbelieving snort was ignored. "In the meantime, I suggest you let Lestrade know you have an identity, and that you focus your efforts on finding Sir Richard Douglas. I do believe that's where she wants you to look."

* * *

"Sherlock!"

The reverberations of the door slamming below him were the only answer to the desperate shout; John slumped against the wall, aware of the discomfort in his shoulder, and ran his good hand over his face.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered, not caring if it was loud enough for Mycroft to hear.

He'd eat his hat if Mycroft really hadn't had the faintest idea that Sherlock would react like this. The urge to chase him down made John's legs burn – but there was no point. Not with his arm the way it was and the sling; Sherlock would jump some fence and be out of reach.

Besides, with his mental map of the city, he'd disappear like a shadow, letting the night swallow him up.

He had his phone on him, though. Unless he thought to turn it off – and he probably would, John knew – he could be tracked. He'd have to call Lestrade, let the DI know. There was one other person who could deal with Sherlock right now.

It was enough of a risk, and Sherlock could certainly give Lestrade slip if he wanted to, but no one else had a shot at getting close.

Not when Sherlock was in this kind of mood.

"Get out," John said brusquely, stepping back into the flat, irritation flaring that Mycroft was still there, unperturbed, as if nothing had happened. "Now."

"I'll send someone to fetch him, of course."

"No you bloody won't!" John shot back. "Jesus, Mycroft, what the hell is your problem? I thought you were supposed to be the smart one! You're not shy about reminding us all of that, but what the _hell_ was that?"

"Information," Mycroft said smoothly, coolly, succeeding only in raising John's hackles all the more. "Decisions have consequences, John. He needs to know that."

John swallowed a choice string of curses that would have made his drill sergeant blush, muscles in his jaw aching at the effort of restraining himself.

"He damn well knows," he snapped.

"Does he?" Mycroft enquired, raising one eyebrow. John jabbed a finger toward the door, not trusting himself to speak for a taut moment.

"He made a choice," he finally growled. "Maybe it was a bad one in retrospect–"

"I should think that four murders in the space of two weeks scarcely qualifies as a 'maybe'," Mycroft replied.

"Put that blame where it belongs," John snapped. "Is he responsible for what she does now?"

"Someone needs to be," Mycroft murmured.

"Yeah. Her. It's not the first time she's left a trail of bodies, Mycroft, even if she didn't put them there. Neither did he. Now get _out_ , or I will bloody well call the police!"

"You will anyway," Mycroft said smoothly, and John smothered a reaction, fisting his good hand to displace the urge to throw something.

Like a punch.

"Out!" he barked, slamming the door behind Mycroft, twisting the deadbolt in its socket. Catching his breath, listening to the sound of footsteps retreating slowly down the stairs. To the faint creak and click of the front door. John kept still, breathing shallow and silent, hearing strained. Mycroft could probably out do him when it came to silence, but years of military instinct didn't lead him astray; when he poked his head out cautiously, he found himself alone.

John crept down the stairs, avoiding the creaky floorboards, and checked Mrs. Hudson's thoroughly before double-checking the locks on the front doors, satisfied that they were shut.

With a sigh, he made his way back upstairs, opening his contacts on his phone, staring at Lestrade's name on the screen.


	7. Chapter 7

He hadn't been able to bring himself to do it.

Four phone calls to Sherlock had gone straight to voicemail, and John had left useless messages before finally resorting to a text that probably wouldn't be read.

_He's gone. It's fine. Come home._

He hated how plaintive it sounded, but at the same time, how cold and commanding. A brief smile touched his lips – Sherlock wouldn't have given that tone a second thought. The expression vanished almost before it was formed; the house had taken on that vacant feel again, too big, too much uncertainty filling up all the cracks and empty spaces.

John pressed his phone to his lips, eyes closed, whispering a silent prayer – to whom or what he didn't know. To Sherlock, really.

 _Can't you leave well enough alone?_ he asked, but it wasn't his partner he was talking to this time.

"Right," he said, the word falling flat in the silence that surrounded him. If Greg could get to Sherlock before one of Mycroft's people did, it would save them all a hell of a lot of headaches. The last thing they needed was for Mycroft to end up with a bloody and broken nose – or worse.

There were probably some stiff penalties for beating up the British government.

With a sigh, he steeled himself, and rung Lestrade's number.

"Greg," he greeted, pre-empting any conversation, "we have a problem."

* * *

"Jesus Christ, you're kidding." The weary, disbelieving curse was accompanied by a _bang_ from downstairs – the front door slamming shut, echoing behind feet taking the stairs two at a time. Not enough time to register that Sherlock had come back before the detective was right there, in a swirl of wool and anger, plucking the phone from John's unresisting fingers.

"Piss off, Greg, I'm fine," he snapped before ending the call abruptly, pitching the phone onto John's chair without even looking round. John was caught in a teetering moment where the shock of Sherlock's presence was outweighed by surprise that he'd remembered Lestrade's name – or had guessed it correctly.

"How do you not know?" Sherlock demanded, towering over John, using his height the way he so often did – all of the irritation but none of the malice.

"What?" John demanded.

"How do you not know, John?" Sherlock snapped again, familiar frustration at being asked to repeat himself overlying the bright, crackling anger for just a moment. "About the Woman! How do _you_ not know?"

"How didn't I know?" John replied, pushing himself to his feet, forcing Sherlock to give him some room – but not much, and the detective was right in his space, pinning him between the sofa and a tall, unyielding body. "Sherlock, how could I possibly have known–"

" _Listen,_ John! I am not asking you how you _didn't_ know, but how you _don't_ know. How, John? Tell me how!"

"How what!" John yelled. "I don't know what the bloody hell you're talking about!"

"There's always a choice. Those were your words to me, John, the night Mrs. Hudson died, were they not?"

John nodded mechanically, searching Sherlock's features – dark and shuttered – for some hint as to what was going on, trying to keep up with someone who was, as always, five steps ahead.

"Why is it that mine is not obvious?"

"What?" John asked. Sherlock set his jaw, a sigh gusting from his nostrils. Breaking his hold on John's gaze, as if frustration made it impossible to sustain that link, however momentarily.

"You _don't_ feel any sense of entitlement toward me?" Sherlock demanded, jabbing a finger toward the chair Mycroft had so recently occupied. " _You?_ Since when, John? Because that seems new!"

"I don't–" John began, but fingers curled around the neck of his jumper, the snarl silencing him, making him draw back as much as he could without losing his footing.

"You're the _only_ one with the right!"

He drew back slightly, involuntary surprise, lips parting with a reply that died at the dark, frustrated glint in Sherlock's eyes.

"Three days, John," Sherlock growled, the sound reverberating in the small space between them. " _Three days_ lost in an uninhabited wilderness with no means of contacting anyone, nor any idea of why we were there!"

"You don't have to remind me!" John snapped, curt tone unable to complete repress the memory of confusion, of fear. The way each step had brought him closer to home, but also closer to knowing that the tenuous, almost suffocating, hope could be broken. That he might really have been alone this time. Knowing that he couldn't have face it. Not again. Not without spending each day after that half convinced it was a lie.

The disbelief when he'd seen figures in the distance, compounded when he'd realized one of them was a tall, dark shadow. The _impossibility_ of it, the conviction – fear – that he'd be proven wrong even when he could see that it was Sherlock crossing the distance between them.

The harsh, protracted moment before he'd been able to curl his hands into the heavy fabric of Sherlock's coat, half certain the illusion would vanish like mist, leaving him with nothing.

Shock at the reality, at being able to stand when confronted with a body – real, warm, smelly, shaking, weak, but somehow holding them up.

"Why am I not allowed the luxury of thinking the same?" Sherlock demanded.

John's lips formed a question, the words evaporating before they were voiced. Searching Sherlock's eyes again, looking for some hint that he'd misunderstood, or was being misled.

"But–"

"What conclusion should I have reached, John, given the facts I had? We were all three together, then Lestrade and I were in the middle of nowhere."

"That doesn't mean–"

"Did you tell yourself that?" Sherlock interrupted. John nodded quickly; he had – over and over and over until it had stuck in a loop in his mind, trying to quell the fear that had only grown stronger with each step.

"Drugged and dehydrated and starving – yet by your own admission, you were better off than we were, with fuel for fire and enough experience to snare small game. You said it to me, out there. 'You're alive'."

John nodded, feeling stuck on the motion, scrambling to keep up as if he were several sentences behind in the conversation – or missing a key piece, which he thought might be true.

"Drugged and dehydrated and starving, John! Why would I have thought any differently?"

John stared, aware that he wasn't doing much else, trying desperately to follow Sherlock's path – not because he didn't understand – or at least he thought he might – but because it was _Sherlock_ , who had so often worked on no food or drink, who had subjected himself to drugging on a regular basis, for whom this had been normal _._

 _Not normal_ , he realized, meeting a piercing glower.

Nothing about that situation had been normal.

 _You saved her life,_ he wanted to say, certain that Sherlock had caught the words in his expression even when he pursed his lips against them. A decision Mycroft hated – but one both he and Sherlock's brother should have seen coming. Would have, if they'd had the right information.

Sherlock had saved her life, and she'd tossed his into the middle of nowhere like it meant nothing. A pawn in a game she was playing that they didn't understand. Not yet. Minor players whose fates she hadn't known – and hadn't been interested in.

"Why is she here?" Sherlock hissed. "Not here," he jabbed a finger in the small space between them, " _here_." The same finger against John's forehead, a tiny, warm point of contact. "Why are _you_ giving her _anything_?"

 _I thought you were dead_. He heard his own voice saying it, and Sherlock's, overlapping until they were indistinguishable, and it hit him like a train, the past two weeks suddenly illuminated for him, throwing his misconception into stark contrast with reality. Everything that had been about _him_ , that he'd been misattributing to _her_ since Sherlock had pieced it together that first night home, smoking a cigarette on the stairs.

The livid, barely restrained reaction to the x-ray. The stubborn, almost petulant refusal to take cases. Being accompanied to work, a close presence tracking his every move.

He'd misread Sherlock entirely. His reactions. The reasons behind them.

It wasn't betrayal. Nor hurt.

 _Fury_.

Three years ago, at an abandoned pool at midnight, he'd watched shock fade to horror when he'd opened his coat, movements dictated by the sing-song voice in his ear, slowed by the cold feeling in his stomach.

Moriarty had stopped being an interesting game in that wrenching, suspended moment.

When it became a choice. The choice Sherlock had just thrown at him, the one John had understood until _she_ had come back– _But that's stupid_ , he realized, because _Sherlock_ had known she'd been alive the whole time, and he'd made the decision all the same.

" _Why_ do you imagine I'm waiting for something better to come along?" Sherlock demanded. "I've never had to do that, John."

John closed his eyes, exhaling hard.

He'd told Mycroft he didn't doubt Sherlock's loyalties.

It had felt like a lie then, a buried uncertainty as to whom Sherlock would actually choose.

 _You're an idiot_ , John told himself, _a sodding, stupid, bloody fucking lucky idiot._

He opened his eyes again when a hand wrapped around the back of his neck, lightly, not confining. He tilted his head back slightly, enough to better meet Sherlock's eyes, and to increase the contact.

"Yeah," he said. "Me neither."

A ghost of a smile on Sherlock's lips, thumb stroking carefully along the line where neck met shoulder, coming nowhere close to the injury. She'd done that, and John knew exactly how angry he'd be if their situations had been reversed. He'd lived it.

A physical injury, an emotional manipulation.

It made no difference.

He reached up with his good hand – carefully – to curl his fingers over Sherlock's.

"Right. I get it."

Another brief smile, a quiet, derisive snort asking if he really did, then the expression vanished, replaced by stony seriousness in Sherlock's eyes and the angles of his face. John kept his own expression open, letting Sherlock search it until something shifted behind pale eyes, finding the truth in the statement.

"But not entitlement," John said, giving his head a shake. "'Claim' would be a better word."

It certainly would for how Sherlock felt him about him – and his things, and his time, and his personal space. The smile was back on the detective's lips; John traced it with a thumb, watching a shadow of desire flicker for a moment. Amazed that it was his, telling himself not to be so stupid about it ever again.

"What do we do now?" John asked. "For the case, I mean."

He got no answer as Sherlock's eyes narrowed, searching and assessing – something that looked like hesitation around the edges of his expression. Not, John thought, about him. About the case itself, or about his injury.

He let Sherlock decide.

"That depends," the detective said, "on how you feel about parking garages."

* * *

The bright floodlights and the police presence slowed Sherlock down for one brief moment until irritation that the world didn't wait on his whims was replaced by the surprise at the police being several steps ahead of him. John cupped Sherlock's elbow gently, just long enough for the touch to register, but it didn't slacken the quick pace as shoes clicked assuredly over the surface of the emptied lot, long stride taking him right toward Hassard.

"Where's Lestrade?" he demanded without preamble. Hassard gestured to the PC Sherlock had interrupted, sending him off to join the others prowling the gaping, echoing space, torches swinging light into darkened corners missed by the floodlights.

"Interviewing the other security guard," she replied. Sherlock pursed his lips against comment, giving a soft, annoyed sigh; Hassard looked past him at John, raising her eyebrows.

"Good to see you, John. How's the shoulder?"

"It's all right," John replied, taking care not to shrug along with the statement, aware that Sherlock was restraining himself against fidgeting.

"We're looking for the point of entry," Hassard said, beckoning to both of them, supplying them with torches of their own. "The main lifts are probably out of the question, but we're looking into them all the same. Stratham – that's the tech you harassed earlier, Sherlock – says their cameras weren't tampered with, nor was the key card mechanism overridden. Best bet's the service lift – or the stairs, but nine flights up with one body and down with another? Even if you're trained, that's a hell of a hike."

"Mm," Sherlock hummed non-committally, swinging his torch in the direction of the service lift. John gave Hassard a commiserative look when the detective strode away, leaving them both to catch up.

"We know Douglas was a mountaineer and that Sarraf was a spelunker – no reason to assume the killers weren't as well trained."

"I'm not," Hassard said, giving her head a small shake. "I've got people searching the stairwell, too. I think it's less likely – the lift would be easier."

"Yes," Sherlock murmured in his half-listening voice, crouching to examine the card mechanism for the lift. "And easier to forge or obtain a card for this lift than the main ones or the stairs."

"Exactly."

"But how did they get in?" he demanded, standing and turning in one smooth movement, torch swinging up to catch Hassard in the face, moving back down abruptly when she held up a hand to shield her eyes.

"Easy," she protested, blinking hard; John gave Sherlock a pointed glare, and the detective at least pretended to look abashed. "We don't know – we're working on it. Looking into every car and delivery vehicle registered in and out that day. The ones that were here at the time – including Douglas' – are in the forensics impound, but so far nothing."

"Douglas drove himself?" John asked.

"Of course he did," Sherlock replied before Hassard could. "You saw his office, John, and his accomplishments. A man like that? He took pride in self sufficiency. His wife on the other hand… she _does_ have a driver."

"We're checking into that, too," Hassard said, and John felt a moment of pity for her and Lestrade – the net seemed cast so wide, especially now.

"Good," Sherlock murmured, distracted again, wandering off, getting no more than a few steps before calling John's name. With an apologetic look at Hassard, he fell into step behind the detective, who was moving slowly across the space between the service lift and the block that housed the main lifts and the stairs. Curious police officers watched them go by; John ignored them through practiced habit, knowing Sherlock noticed them only as potential obstacles – if at all.

"Shut the lights off!"

"What?" Hassard demanded.

"The floodlights! Shut them off!"

John watched the DI argue with herself, defeated with a sigh, and she repeated the order to her people. Darkness fled back in, broken by torch light and the dimmer lights of the parking garage. Eyes closed, John counted to five slowly in his head before letting himself see again, finding Sherlock instinctively.

"What is it?" he murmured.

* * *

A raised hand stilled any further questions; Sherlock could feel them poised on John's lips, a light pressure in the air around them, as if unvoiced words had a weight of their own.

They always did, with John.

Easier now to judge the character of that weight, now that he had all the facts.

The facts about John, because there was something missing _here_ – something more than Douglas' body. John's suspended words were questions about what Sherlock was seeing, but he didn't know yet, moving slowly across the asphalt, feet registering information through the soles of his shoes, cataloguing and assessing, but this wasn't what was important.

Hiding in plain sight. He understood that so thoroughly, had used assumptions and misapprehensions to move through the world, dead, for nine months, and there was something hiding _here_ , a shadow in the wrong place, empty space where there should be none.

Not any of the police officers, whom Hassard had mercifully silenced, and he could feel the weight of their gazes, lighter than John's expectations. Not a person. A thing. The floodlights made it too obvious, let gaze skitter past it without registering it. Something expected that no one saw, because it meant nothing, it looked as if it belonged.

A slow pace tracing the path between the main lifts and the service lift. Barred, rectangular entrances, brushed steel or painted into anonymity. Stairs marked with a "way out" sign that announced their presence, key card reader undamaged here. Burnished metallic glint of two lifts. Lift service access doors, maintenance closets.

Torch light glanced over the "way out" sign before swinging toward the garage's exit, automated arm down, holding them in.

 _Way out_ , he thought, counting the doors carefully, slowly, refusing to let his mind slip past what seemed banal, insignificant.

"Amanda," he called when he was certain, "do you have the blueprints for the building?"

"Yeah," she replied. A brief discussion with a constable – necessary logistics – but it was John beside him that was the important data point, a second beam of light joining his, hovering on chipped black paint. John moved aside, but there was no real sense of distance as Hassard stood between them, architectural map spread between her hands.

"That's the maintenance access for the service lift," Sherlock said, illuminating the door with his torch. "The one on the other side is a custodial closet – storage, probably. What's this one?" Back to the one right in front of them, standing closed like a mute shadow.

She shook her head, the light from John's torch moving slightly across the page as if searching for an answer.

"It's on here, but it's not marked."

"We should find out," Sherlock said, arching an eyebrow.

"Yep," Hassard agreed. "Hang on. I think there's someone who might know."

* * *

"Sure, I know," Singer replied, glancing between the three of them as if confused. "It used to lead down to some old service tunnels that ran under the buildings in this area."

"And no one thought that was worth mentioning?" Hassard snapped.

"They haven't been used in– well, decades as far as I know. There's nothing down there."

"If you don't know how long it's been since they were used, how do you know nothing's down there?" Sherlock asked dryly, unable to entirely resist the urge to shine the beam of his torch at the guard's face.

"The door's all bricked up on the other side," Singer said, squinting in the light, and a quiet cough from John made Sherlock sigh but lower the torch.

"Why not on this side?" Hassard asked. The guard shrugged, shaking his head.

"Inspector, would you take a bet on whether or not that seal is still standing?" Sherlock asked.

"Not a chance," Hassard replied, glancing over her shoulder. "Johnson! Flores! Get a kit. If it's blocked behind – even partially – we'll have to take that door down."


	8. Chapter 8

"We're going to need maps," Hassard said, the beam of her torch cutting into the dampened darkness beyond the open and unsealed door.

"We're going to need headlamps," Sherlock corrected. "And sterile suits." He smiled brightly at the puzzled look she gave him, and John suspected he was the only one that caught the fleeting hint of brittle triumph in his partner's expression. "I'll supply the maps."

* * *

It gave the impression of vast, echoing space, even though the pipes that ran above them and along one side were not very far removed from the mud-smeared concrete floor. Silence wasn't really silence, punctuated by breathing, by the sounds of people working filtering down from the parking garage at the top of the old metal staircase, by the dripping of water here and there that somehow didn't seem forlorn.

Because it wasn't _lonely_. John would have bet they were alone now, the three of them, lights from their headlamps cutting through the gloomy darkness, but this wasn't a place that knew abandonment, for all that it was supposed to have been sealed off for decades.

Below the streets, away from the eyes of passers-by and surveillance cameras, artists had made this a canvas, and there was hardly a surface uncovered by vivid colours, deep blacks or stark whites. Tags, some of them readable or identifiable as names. Chopped symbols left by new paint obscuring older. Snatches of phrases – street philosophers and hate speech crowded their words against each other. An incomprehensible phrase in a foreign alphabet, written in sharp red and surrounded by intricately painted blue figures that were more imagination than symbols. The profile of a girl so shockingly lifelike despite the deliberate discolouration of purples and yellows that John took a picture of it for the blog.

He took pictures of everything, glancing at Hassard who gave him a consenting wave of the hand, her attention more focused on Sherlock and on the scene than on him. The detective was crouched, moving in that way of his that should have been impossible but he pulled off with a quick grace, stopping to press gloved hands against the cold surface, head pivoting like an owl's, beam from his headlamp illuminating whatever he wanted to subject to his glare.

He looked angular, the garish light from the headlamps heightening his sharp features, deepening the shadows. It wasn't just a trick of the light, John thought – the shadows were in the detective's expression, well hidden, but he was the expert on Sherlock Holmes. Even if Hassard didn't see it, John knew the shape of familiar muscles too well for tension to go unrecognized.

A case like this would normally have been Sherlock's game, but there was a more dangerous one in play now. They could be walking into a trap, waiting for the snare to snap, and John wondered for a sickening moment if this was how Sherlock had felt when he'd stepped onto the roof with Jim Moriarty, all variables and no certainty.

John doubted Irene Adler had the resources to manage that. Doubted, but wasn't sure.

Unless, of course, she was working for Mary.

_Jesus_ , he thought, holding his balance, suppressing the sudden suspicion from being voiced. If he'd made the connection, then Sherlock already had before him. John wondered if he hadn't raised the possibility because he didn't think it was one, or out of some misplaced sense of kindness.

_She hates games,_ he reminded himself. It was the reason Moran and Moriarty were dead and, as Sherlock had explained, the reason why she hadn't been behind their impromptu trek in Wales.

He was jumping at shadows, imagining links that didn't exist.

At least, he hoped like hell he was.

A deep breath let him refocus, tuning his hearing to the silence from Sherlock that meant deduction at too rapid a pace to speak. He turned his attention back to the walls, seeing colours and patterns repeated. He photographed them, wondering if they mattered.

"It's not the writing on the walls, John, it's the writing on the floor. Look here," Sherlock stood, catching John's attention. Circling carefully, keeping away from the edges of the path where the muck was thicker and Hassard had forbidden them to go to avoid ruining footprints. "There are fresh traces of mud on the stairs, so we know they were used recently – not to mention the bricks blocking the door were carefully removed. Someone had time to do this, which means they knew the tunnel system and could gauge when it wouldn't be in use. Likely at night, to avoid being overheard by anyone in the parking garage."

"They had the guard, too," Hassard pointed out. "He'd have been able to let them know when it was safe to work on the other side."

"Quite right," Sherlock agreed. "There are footprints almost everywhere – some old, some more recent, but nothing particularly fresh, so none of our skilled artists have been down here recently, I'd say within the last forty-eight hours."

"If the killers came through here, it would be a lot more recently."

"Yes, and we'd expect them to leave footprints as well – and they would expect us to expect that. These are clever men – balance of probability for their sex – who orchestrated a very elaborate exchange without being detected until it was far too late. They would know that we'd find this, eventually."

"So they covered their tracks as they went," John said.

"Precisely," Sherlock agreed, eyes flickering up to meet his. "And in the most efficient way possible. Using the body itself."

"Efficient?" Hassard asked. "It's not easy to drag a corpse."

"But it _is_ easier if that corpse is bagged. The clothing in which Sarraf was found wasn't his – he'd been put into the suit sometime after he died, but it smelled of damp."

"No shortage of that here," Hassard said.

"The suit _smelled_ damp but _wasn't_ damp, nor was it dirty. Molly surmised he must have been kept in something, which makes sense. We know he was stored below freezing – properly stored, too – but even down here, it's cold enough that short term, he would have kept for a short while."

"It's been almost two weeks," John said.

"At least," Sherlock agreed. "He had been frozen, but they wouldn't want him to look or feel frozen when he was found."

"You think they stored him down here to thaw out?" John asked.

"In a body bag," Sherlock agreed. "Keeps the mud and the damp off, but down here, he doesn't thaw so quickly he begins to decompose at a rapid rate."

"These tunnels are obviously used," Hassard pointed out.

"As I said, not within the last forty-eight hours. Perhaps this one was temporarily blocked, or someone was stationed here to keep watch. Perhaps whoever frequents this area has a keen enough sense to stay out of trouble."

"Yeah, right," Hassard said, sitting back on her heels. "Aside from breaking into abandoned tunnels to spray graffiti everywhere."

"Spray cans aren't that dangerous," Sherlock said, lips quirking.

"Places like this can be."

"And there must be all manner of hiding places down here," Sherlock added. "Who knows how far these tunnels extend, and where they join with the sewers or forgotten bomb shelters or tube service corridors."

"Something tells me you're going to suggest we find out," John said. The smile Sherlock gave him was full-fledged, the knife bright grin John associated with them about to do something incredibly ill-advised.

"Keep your camera at the ready, John. We may see something significant."

"Oh, so _now_ you think the graffiti is important?" John asked.

"Everything's important," Sherlock sniffed. "Until it's not."

* * *

_This is insane_ , John thought, but had to admit to himself that it wasn't the most irresponsible thing he'd done since he'd met Sherlock.

As irresponsible things with Sherlock went, it was actually pretty far down the list, possibly even approaching sanity.

They had a police officer with them – and a DI to boot. John had expected Hassard to protest, until he'd seen the look on her face following Sherlock's explanation of where and why Sarraf's body had been stored.

He was used to exasperation from the Met when it came to Sherlock, but there was none of that captured in her expression. It struck him that while this might be a game for the people behind it – and even to some extent to Sherlock, despite everything – this wasn't for her.

Someone had stolen two lives, and John could see the dark anger beneath the incomplete mask of professionalism. She followed without question – but not without having given orders for a systematic search to be devised, for more teams, and dogs. Sherlock had chafed but had – amazingly – waited until she was satisfied before leading the way deeper into the tunnel.

It was slow going in the unfamiliar darkness, even with the lights from their headlamps. He tried to follow the right-angle twists and turns of the tunnel as it bypassed whatever it had been built around, but underground navigation always left him confused. He gave up after a short time, leaving the mapping to Sherlock, who would record the path with unerring accuracy, and focused on the photography and on keeping an even footing.

John was slowing them down even more and he knew it – where Sherlock and Hassard could scramble over debris that hadn't been cleared or duck easily into low-hanging spaces, he had to take his time. The lack of complaint from Sherlock was something of a minor miracle, but John felt grey eyes raking over him, along with the beam from the detective's headlamp, at each delay.

He was faking it pretty well, he thought, the movement helping him ignore the pain, the slower pace letting him get a good look around. Sherlock was channelling his inner tracker, following the marks left behind the by the body bag that had dragged Douglas away from the scene his own death.

"Some of these are repeating," John murmured, tapping the bright splash of paint on a curving wall as they went past. Hassard glanced over her shoulder, head lowered enough not to blind him.

"Tags," she replied. "Someone's territory, no doubt."

"Disputed territory," Sherlock corrected in an off-handed tone that told John his body might be here, but his mind was miles ahead, racing through underground passageways, chasing down hints and leads and suspicions as carefully and expertly as he was tracing the smeared path.

"Not much to fight over," John commented.

"But more than nothing," Sherlock murmured, holding up a hand for them to stop. Two torch beams joined his, peering past his shoulder; the tunnel had come to an abrupt end, a circular hole in the ground making room for the ladder that vanished into the gloom. Sherlock tilted his head back, light following the ladder up into the shadows above them. John joined him, trying to catch the hint of a hatch or manhole; as far as he could tell, it was smooth concrete above their heads.

"Sealed over?" he suggested.

"Down it is," Sherlock agreed.

"Not a chance," Hassard said, an arm snapping out suddenly to block Sherlock's path, catching the detective up short. "We have no idea what's down there, and I'm not going in with two unarmed civilians and no back up."

"John's technically not a civilian," Sherlock pointed out dryly. "And neither of us is unarmed."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that last bit," she said. "And it doesn't matter – John can't climb a ladder with his arm in a sling, and I'm not letting you go traipsing about in an unmapped tunnel by yourself."

"You can hardly stop me," Sherlock replied, and John heard more than saw the flare of nostrils in response.

"Police investigation. You don't like my methods, you can go home. Besides, Greg'd kill me if you ended up dead – or worse – on my watch."

"What's worse than dead?" Sherlock wondered, tone half taken aback, and John was certain his smirk wasn't unnoticed, for all that the detective's back was to him. Sherlock glanced over his shoulder, grey eyes cool.

"Probably a lot of things," Hassard snapped. "You don't get to find out, not today. Back we go." She herded them in front of her this time, John's lips twitching at the scowl on Sherlock's face.

"Don't push it," he murmured, knowing full well his comment wouldn't go unheard by the DI.

"I never do," Sherlock replied.

"Yeah, right," John muttered.

* * *

The end of the tunnel closest to the stairs – what John thought of as the main area – was lit with floodlights by the time they returned, making them squint slightly as their eyes adjusted. Thrown into such unforgiving light, the art on the walls seemed both starker and more vivid. The portrait of the girl seemed to have aged with the illumination. John took another picture of it, wondering what the artist had intended when it had been painted.

The blue symbols surrounding the red writing were more intricate than he'd first noticed, too. He took another couple of shots, close up to capture them in detail, further back to catch the phrase as well.

"Do you know what that says?" he murmured when Sherlock joined him, a warm, soundless presence behind his good shoulder.

"Don't look behind you."

"What?" John asked, but Sherlock was already disobeying the message. John turned, eyes skimming the opposite wall. The irritated sigh from beside him drew his attention, and his headlamp, to the wall in front of them.

"Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose." Puzzled, the doctor followed the detective's pointing finger, picking out one of the phrases he'd seen earlier. "And there, 'keys open doors'. It's _inspirational_ ," Sherlock said, voice cool, holding the word at arm's length as though it was distasteful.

"So what language is this one in then?" John asked. "Looks almost Arabic, but not."

"It's written in Hindi. The writing system – which I suspect if what you were asking about – is Devanagari. Used mainly for Hindi and Sanskrit scripts. Among others, of course."

"Why am I not surprised you know that?" John asked with a smile, glancing up at his partner, lips twitching into a faint grimace at the twinge of pain in his shoulder.

"John…"

"It's fine," he said automatically, then sighed, resisting the urge to shake his head. "Okay, it's not really fine. But not bad."

Sherlock was silent, expression shuttered, darkened around the edges but wary, as if holding himself apart from the topic. Or reluctant to broach it further.

"It's just– She's right you know. Hassard. I can't climb that ladder one-armed. I'm not much use here."

"You're always useful," Sherlock retorted, the thin press of his lips almost affronted. John grinned, giving his partner's bicep a squeeze, replacing uncertainty with a quick affection.

"So you always tell me."

"And I don't lie." Sherlock's voice dipped into a growl, but John was adept at reading those tones, and this was more protest than actual irritation.

"You lie all the time," John replied.

"I don't _lie_. I just– decorate the truth a little."

A chuckle slipped past John's lips and he gave his head a shake.

"You're a shameless liar and we both know it. Look, Sherlock, I'm _not_ useful here. That doesn't mean not useful on the case. They'll have maps soon, if not already. And the bodies had to get into and out of the tunnels somewhere, which means they'd need to be transported." Sherlock raised an eyebrow, a familiar amused fondness glinting in grey eyes. "If we can map where these tunnels connected to other buildings in the area, maybe we can pull security footage and find a pattern of unusual vehicles. It's worth a shot."

"It most certainly is," Sherlock agreed.

"You can keep traipsing around down here," John said, ignoring the roll of the eyes at his use of Hassard's words, "and I can do something useful up there. You can text me incessantly, too."

"Yes, I'm sure the service down here is entirely reliable," Sherlock said dryly.

"You could always keep me in here," John replied, tapping an index finger against Sherlock's forehead, the flicker of surprise surprising him in return. It took a moment for realization to set in, making him grin again. "Oh, I see. You've already one. Well I hope he's every bit an annoying dick as the you who lives in mine."

"You have me in your head?" Sherlock asked.

"'Course I do, you stupid sod," John replied, trying to keep the gruff tone from his voice. "What do you think?"

"Rather a lot of things," Sherlock replied briskly.

"Ha," John muttered, lips twitching. "I'll just bet you do. Go be brilliant and dazzling and amazing. I'll do what I can to muddle through on my own."


	9. Chapter 9

"Our proverbial haystack," Lestrade said, sweeping an arm to encompass the whole room.

John lifted his eyebrows at the mess of maps, schematics, and blueprints littering the conference room table. Two constables were already buried in notes and curling sheets of paper, one of them deigning to spare him a glance and a wan, tired smile.

"Looks like I have my work cut out for me," he commented, glancing back at Lestrade.

"Wish I could say the same," the DI sighed. "Wertz," he caught a passing PC, "grab us a couple of coffees. Black and…"

"Cream, no sugar," John supplied. "Nothing from the guard?"

"An easy mark, thought it was going to be a theft. Someone promised him a cut of the profits – 'course there weren't any, but he insists he didn't know that. Had no idea the target was Douglas, was just chatted up by a woman in a pub."

"You're not serious," John groaned.

"Wish I wasn't," Lestrade said. "Like I said, easy mark. Not the kind of man who gets out or meets many women. Hell, probably doesn't meet _anyone_. He says he never met whoever was supposed to be running the job. I'd bet my badge one of them was the fake courier Mycroft caught on the surveillance feed. It would help if we knew who he was, but the guard didn't recognize him. I'd almost feel sorry for him – except it's not him in a morgue, or up all bloody night poring over maps or tromping through tunnels."

"I don't think Sherlock minds that bit," John said dryly.

"I mind when people trade in lives like they were bargaining chips," Lestrade replied, a hard edge in his voice. "Coffee. Good. Here you go. It's swill but it does the trick." He plucked two mugs from the PC, passing one off to John. "Constable Tema will get you set up," he continued, nodding at the woman who had given John the bare greeting. "Let you know what you're looking at – or what we think you're looking at anyway. Good luck. You'll need it."

* * *

Sherlock checked his phone discreetly, unsurprised by the lack of service he'd predicted, but somewhat disappointed. If he'd been in the mood to consider ever having a conversation with Mycroft again, he would have made a note to mention it. As he was not, he did not.

With a quiet sigh, he tucked the phone back into his breast pocket beneath the forensics suit, zipping back up conscientiously. It wasn't him contaminating the crime scene that worried him, but the crime scene contaminating him. He'd had enough cause to be grateful for the hooded suit already, damp as it was down here, and he had no desire to ruin his shirt.

It was one of John's favourites.

"Ready?" Hassard asked, materializing beside him.

"I was ready half an hour ago," Sherlock replied coolly, which earned him little more than a raised eyebrow in response.

"John was in the military. You should know that you don't send the officers in first."

"I'm not an officer," he pointed out.

"Just as well," she said with a quick grin that was far too cheeky for his liking. "But I promised John I'd keep you safe."

Sherlock snorted. _Safe_. Safe was boring. John knew that.

And yet, he was securely tucked away in the Yard. Drowning in maps and charts presented no real threat to life or limb, and Sherlock couldn't entirely deny the relief he felt at knowing that John currently out of harm's way. That, even though he was out of immediate reach by phone, this wasn't Wales. He knew precisely where John was, and trusted Lestrade's abilities well enough – even if he'd never confess to it.

Lestrade had never met the Woman, but he'd been subject to her schemes. He'd been there. He understood.

It was why John would be well guarded, even in the security of the Yard.

It was why Sherlock was now in the company of a cautious DI, his own safety tediously assured – or at least as much as he was willing to tolerate. It chafed, but less so than the anger that fuelled an ever-burning furnace, kept so tenuously under control that it terrified him, because there was no margin for error.

Not here, not now.

Nothing could be taken for granted. The city had become a battlefield he didn't recognize. One he thought he'd reclaimed after nine long months of exile, only to find himself exiled again, against his will, without contacts or resources, for three gruelling days.

London wasn't his own anymore. It had changed, shadows shifting, dismantling what he'd known.

The insult burned almost as brightly as the rage for John – who was _she_ to take what was his?

To pluck him from _his_ city, from his _John_ , scattering the three of them like leaves in the wind, and how dare she do _this_ – not just the murders but the instability, this constant questioning of his own mind and depriving him of John's presence, the two things he needed to trust without doubt. The only things he cherished, that made him _him_ , that gave him meaning and purpose and focus.

It was a game, one she'd begun, but he wouldn't play the role she'd devised for him. Not this time. Whatever her rules were, they didn't matter.

She'd broken the only one that mattered to him. Broken it so carelessly that it had broken John. A dark line on an x-ray. The offensive need to adjust their lives to accommodate an injury that should be nothing more than the occasional passing annoyance. The insulting loss of John's assistance, his company, and his expertise. The doubt that had rooted in John's mind that had no place, that crowded their flat.

"Coming?" Hassard asked, her voice like a taut line back to the present, and whatever he wrestled back under control in the space of a breath, he saw reflected in her eyes. Different reasons, the same hot rage burning as energy when other reserves were running low.

Sherlock gave a curt nod, gesturing for Hassard to lead the way. She wasn't about to let him go first, and it was simpler to let her define the path while he focussed on the details – repeating patterns on the walls, the bends and curves in the tunnel as it circumvented other structures unseen and unknown. Access tunnels for the tubes, most likely. Sewers, utility pipes, basements. The pattern was memorized, compared to the original one he'd recorded. No discrepancies found, and no new data presented itself until they were stepping off the ladder into the lower tunnel.

Shift in the air currents – it was colder down here, but drier. A larger, more open space, and a moment with his eyes closed let Sherlock feel a distant rumble through his feet. Tube some distance below them. Likely accessible from here if one knew where to look, but he shelved the possibility for now. Too difficult to get a body onto public transit without notice (he ignored John's cheeky grin in his mind at the memory of the time he'd learned _that_ from experience). No station in the immediate vicinity either; tricky to walk through a tube tunnel with its live rails carrying the dead weight of a fully grown adult man.

The distant sound of water – not a torrent, more of a trickle, like a small stream. Run-off from some drain pipe, no doubt. It lent a dampness to the atmosphere, but only slightly; enough to smell it if he inhaled deeply, not quite enough to feel it. There was something on the air, almost spicy, like pine in the underground breeze. Movement and space were the culprits, not the true freshness of unfettered air from the surface.

Cold, dry. Ideal for storage of a body, but the air carried no hint of decay. Not human decay. A hint of mouldiness beneath everything, not unexpected.

They were alone – as alone as could be with nearly the entirety of a police squad. He scanned the shadows not illuminated by the irritating floodlights; in London's underground, this would be a veritable palace, but it was uninhabited.

At the moment.

Signs of recent life remained. The place had been abandoned, apparently in a hurry. That had to have been within the last two days; any longer, and this place would begin to fill up again, bodies or not. The police presence would delay any return, but only briefly.

"No muddy footprints," Sherlock said. "Mud from above would track down, and there's not much of it down here to cover it. They'd have been prepared for that."

"Change of shoes?" Hassard asked.

"Or shoe covers," he replied, gesturing to the ones they were wearing. "No drag marks either, but they wouldn't have to drag Douglas down here. No need to cover footprints, not with dry soles on a dry surface. There may still be something…"

"But with all the other footprints, it's hard to tell," Hassard replied with a shrug.

"Precisely. Dragging him would give their path away."

"We have two choices," she said.

"That we know of," Sherlock corrected, earning a concurring, if irritated, huff.

"That way leads back toward the building we've just come from," she said, pointing to their right. Sherlock raised an eyebrow, and Hassard shot him an annoyed look. "What, because you're the only one with a sense of direction?"

"It might lead that way, but it doesn't connect to Douglas' building."

"Yeah, I thought of that," she snapped, then sighed, giving her head a small shake. "If we knew where the entrances were, we could have teams working their way toward each other. We're just fumbling in the dark down here."

"Then let's fumble left," Sherlock replied.

"Guessing?" Hassard asked.

"Hardly," Sherlock sniffed. "There's water to our right in the distance, no indication of that to our left. Path of least resistance. Useful when carrying a corpse."

"Right," Hassard agreed. "Let's go."

* * *

_What the hell_ am _I looking at?_

The maps stared back at him mutely, an incomprehensible maze of lines and angles that might as well have been a foreign language. John tapped the pencil in his left hand lightly against the sheet in front of him. He'd removed his sling carefully, with Constable Tema's help – it was either that or be unable to write properly. The two PCs were marking up the maps spread out across the table; he took it as implicit permission to do the same.

The city map was simple to understand, of course, but in trying to switch between the familiar, almost cartoonish, aerial view to the diagrams and schematics written in the languages of architects and engineers, the information drained away like water through clenched fingers. Each time he thought he had a starting point, he lost it down the line, leaving him to backtrack until he wasn't sure which way was up.

_Sherlock'd go through this in a shot_ , John thought, giving his head a minute shake, mindful of the injured muscles on his left side.

_But I'm a proper genius_ , his partner's voice echoed in his head, and John just managed to restrain an aggravated sigh that would give the constables the wrong idea.

_Christ I hope your version of me is ten times as annoying as you are_ , he replied, lips twitching as he tried. _Got any actual useful advice?_

_You're looking at it all wrong._

Sherlock's voice had an odd harmonic that made John frown and sit back in his chair. The change in perspective did nothing; he leaned forward, shifting his left arm from the table to avoid putting pressure on it. Still nothing. He flipped the nearest map around, looking at it upside down. He stood, taking several steps back, then climbed onto his chair, drawing puzzled stares from both constables.

John shrugged his right shoulder slightly, reclaiming his seat.

The maps sat silently, defying him to understand them.

_How am I looking at it wrong?_ he asked himself, chewing absently on his lower lip. He turned Sherlock's words over in his head, trying to break down the meaning, distracted more by the way Sherlock had sounded. Not exactly right, as though it wasn't him – or John's version of him – speaking. Voice modulated, somehow. Or combined.

_Focus, Watson._

The sudden clarity startled him; it _hadn't_ been Sherlock's voice. Not entirely. It had been mixed with the sound of his own.

John held himself still, breathing slowly and deliberately, eyes flickering over the maps. He pushed the city map away, keeping the others were they where.

And saw it.

Sherlock had been right – he had been looking at it the wrong way.

He'd been trying to follow the streets, match the tunnels up with a grid above ground that had little or nothing to do with what lay beneath the surface. The roads and buildings were the city's skin, the tunnels – any of them – that ran below its blood vessels and nervous system. They _were_ connected, but trying to impose one map on the other wasn't going to work.

He needed to look at it like a surgeon.

John pulled the aerial map back toward him, circled Douglas' building as a starting point. With the pencil taking the place of scalpel and tweezers, he set to work.

* * *

The presence of accompanying constables annoyed him; Sherlock ignored them in retaliation and out of habit. Tuned his mind to Hassard's voice and no others. She was clever enough, he supposed, but stubborn in that familiar way of a high ranking police officer who also happened to be an eldest child.

_Not as bad as Mycroft_ , his mental John pointed out.

_Shut up,_ Sherlock replied, no real bite to his tone, and his image of John grinned. _And she's far worse than Lestrade._

_You wouldn't say that if Greg were there._

_I thought it was Grant_.

_You're hopeless_ , John said fondly, then subsided as Sherlock refocused, picking his way carefully through the shadows. They'd left the floodlights well behind, torches and headlamps lighting their path imperfectly. Keeping close to one side freed him from the immediate presence of any of the PCs, let him gauge the history scrawled on the walls. The brick and mortar itself spoke of age despite the more recent artistic additions. Beneath those, here and there, he found hints of older inscriptions.

"It was a bomb shelter," he said, voice carrying enough in the enclosed space to catch the attention of one or two constables, and Hassard. She crouched next to him, headlamp giving more illumination to the date scratched into the brick.

"That means there must be an exit to the surface."

"Not necessarily," Sherlock replied. "Not anymore."

"Good point," she sighed. "Let's keep moving."

The ground gave nothing away; occasional silent, painted faces gazed back at him from the wall. Hassard had charged forensics with documenting the graffiti; they'd do a thorough job but John would have done better. The officers would see nothing of value in evidence unrelated to the crime; John would look for that value, even if it weren't there.

_John's still on the case_ , he argued with himself. _It hardly matters that he's not here_. The doctor's help above ground was equally valuable as his help down here would have been – perhaps more so. It was perfectly reasonably they split up to cover more ground – both figuratively and literally. They were bound to accomplish more that way.

Sherlock didn't believe himself.

_I did say you were a liar_ , his internal John pointed out. Sherlock scowled, expression lost in the darkness.

_Are you going to let me work?_ he demanded, refocusing, marking the position of the police officers with little more effort than it took to gauge his own physical presence. Remarkable how that awareness included John – or the lack of John. It always had, but had become more pronounced, as if better knowing John physically made it easier to understand how he fit into the space around him.

How _they_ fit together. Proximity and displayed affection depended on the situation but never really distanced despite the presence of other people or clothing. How it could be both distracting and sustaining at the same time?

_Shut up_ , he repeated when John drew an inward breath to make a mocking comment.

A shift in the darkness caught Sherlock's eye, and the irritation at John's absence and his inescapable mental presence subsumed by sudden concentration.

_Don't look behind you_ , he thought, incongruously.

The beam from his headlamp followed his gaze to the far wall, casting mortar into faint shadow between the brick, illuminating the change in texture he thought he'd seen. Brick to lattice: a small grate obscured a dark space cut into the wall, low enough that it would pass for a storm drain at first glance – but the telltale signs of water were missing. No excessive dampness on the worn concrete around it, no mineral or chemical stains, no smell of mould.

"Amanda," he called, a beam of light swinging back toward him as he crossed the tunnel carefully, eyes flickering over the ground, ensuring he disturbed nothing. At his pointed direction, her light joined his. Footsteps died as the rest of the small team stopped at her instructions, more light cast their way as they crouched. The metal was free of any rust, and the grate swung easily in Sherlock's light grip, no catch or creak of protest from the hinges.

Without giving the DI time to protest, Sherlock was flat on his stomach, snaking into the narrow space, the light from his headlamp suddenly much brighter with something to confine it. A resigned, impatient sigh came from behind him, but Hassard said nothing beyond a cursory order to be careful. Sherlock grunted a vague acknowledgement, pulling himself in further, torch picking up the edges of what he'd suspect must be there.

The small tunnel was deeper than he'd expected, deep enough to push something back out of reach of the casual viewer with a torch. Deeper than the length of his body, tucked away almost neatly. Contained, hidden, and dry. Sherlock wormed his way in closer, holding his breath. Ascertaining what he already knew, tracing familiar plastic patterns.

He raised his eyes toward the low ceiling. A descent from the lofty office with its view of the city, a careful movement down into a small, underground space. One victim had stood on the top of the world, the other had moved below it. In death, Sarraf had climbed to heights he hadn't in life.

_Oh yes, very clever_ , Sherlock thought, nostrils flaring on a sharp exhale, scowl unseen in the darkness.

"Anything?" Hassard's voice called behind him. Sherlock pushed himself backwards, sucking in a deep grateful gulp of air when he re-emerged into the main tunnel. Not so terrible a smell – not after so short a time – but the air in there was trapped, more pungent.

"Yes," he replied. "An occupied body bag. Unless I'm very much mistaken, we've just found the real Richard Douglas."


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Hold up!** If you're reading this here and only here (not also on ffn) then I need to apologize, because a big chunk of chapter 6 got cut off at the end! I don't know how, but if you thought the transition to 7 was abrupt, go back and reread 6 now; it'll make a _lot_ more sense. Sorry about that!

“I think I’ve got something.”

Lestrade managed to clear a space on his desk the moment before the map was spread out, a maze of lines and symbols accentuated by red pen ink and hastily jotted notes.

“Here,” John said, drawing a circle around a pre-existing one, “is Douglas’ office building.” The pen traced down alongside another line; the doctor wasn’t wearing his sling, and Lestrade half wondered if he should say something – if only to offset an irate Sherlock later on – but John _was_ a doctor. He ought to know what he was doing.

He certainly seemed to now.

“This,” John continued, “is the tunnel from the parking garage, and it goes down here where we found the ladder. It looks like there’s a bunch of other structures in this area, including tube lines and access tunnels, and this one may connect to those, but it also connects here,” he drew a line quickly, zig-zagging slightly, to match with another circle, “here, and here.” He repeated the process twice more.

“Three other buildings,” Lestrade said. “How the hell did you–”

John grinned fiercely.

“You’d be surprised how useful a medical degree can be. The nervous system isn’t an easy thing to navigate,” he said, and Lestrade huffed a sigh. “The tunnels connect to a bank and two office buildings.”

The bank set off warning sirens in his brain, and any other time, Lestrade would have given it priority, but accessing the tunnels had been to move bodies in and out, not money. Something like that wouldn’t go unnoticed in a bank.

“Let’s find out which one has underground parking,” he said.

* * *

The handful of officers had become a swarm, with the forensics team roping off the area, adding photograph flashes to the bright lights that had been hurriedly installed. Donovan had come and gone, dispatched to the surface to report Douglas’ recovery once the body bag had been carefully withdrawn from its small tunnel, after the coroner’s team finally arrived, and the man inside exposed. Sherlock had observed expressions rather than the corpse; a quick glance had confirmed the identity, but Hassard and Donovan had been careful about the identification. Both of them deliberately blank, impassive. Until their eyes met, briefly, over the body, and Donovan was gone to carry out her orders.

Sherlock repressed a brittle, triumphant smile, standing back, biding his time as Hassard directed the scene. Edging away wouldn’t work – she had to come to him, not after him.

Keeping out of the way was tedious, but there was little enough to work with down here and _this_ wasn’t the crime scene. Douglas had been hidden here to be found – and the realization tempted him to stop, to walk away from the case without a backward glance, to collect his John and return to Baker Street.

 _Don’t look behind you_.

 _No_ , he thought, another smile curling on his lips, cold and sharp, more knife’s edge than humour. He would not jump at shadows, nor would he go back the way he’d came. Simplicity was deceptive, and he would not be blinded, not even down here in the darkness.

“There’s still another end,” he murmured when Hassard finally approached him.

“What?” she asked, features creasing into a frown.

“Where they came in with Sarraf’s body.”

“We don’t even know that they did,” she sighed.

“Of course we do,” Sherlock snapped. “He was frozen, and thawed slowly. You saw that grate. Recently replaced, small spaces in the lattice. _Very_ small. That tunnel is contained, in good repair. An ideal place to store a body – and engineered to be so. No rats. But his suit still smelled damp, and the air in there was confined. Damper than the air out here.”

“Fine,” Hassard said. “But there’s no reason to assume they didn’t bring him in the same way they brought Douglas.”

“Douglas was moved from inside his own building. Sarraf was moved in from outside. They may have had access to the security grid in the building, but what about those on the streets? An unfamiliar vehicle arriving at an odd hour? We could track that.”

“Unless they made a pattern of it.”

“Effort,” Sherlock sighed. “Less of it required to find a second entry point than to evade all the external CCTV cameras. The door to the parking garage was bricked up on this end. Who says they all are? Find one that isn’t, and all they’d need is access to the garage and time enough to figure out where the camera blind spots are. Presuming the other garage has cameras.”

“Presuming there _are_ other garages,” Hassard said.

“In this area of the city?” Sherlock replied. “Where else would you park?”

She wavered, hesitating as responsibility warred with professional curiosity, and Sherlock caught the moment of acquiescence before she did, keeping a triumphant smile to himself.

“Two men are dead, Inspector,” he said, tipping the balance further in his favour.

“You don’t have to remind me,” she snapped. “Let’s keep it at only two, shall we? You stay right here and don’t slip off.” Sherlock rolled his eyes but deigned to wait as she round up a constable to come with them and left another in charge until Donovan returned.

“I hope you’re right,” Hassard said, shooting him a dark look as they left the lights behind.

“Aren’t I always?” Sherlock sniffed, ignoring the faint huff in response.

It was easier to concentrate with the babble of voices fading behind them, Hassard and the constable silent in the near-darkness. Bobbing headlamps cast imperfect light in front of them, forcing his other senses back for the forefront. Simple enough to attune himself to the tunnel again, watching for signs of human passage, hearing only the quiet skittering of small animals trying to evade the torches.

He felt the change before he saw it, the air shifting, carrying something else on it. New scents that didn’t belong down here, perhaps faint noises on the edges of his hearing. Not the dampness of the tunnel connected to Douglas’ building, but the opposite. Drier, less stagnant.

A familiar space, not one that had been sealed off and forgotten by most of the world.

“Amanda.” The word stopped both Hassard and the constable, and Sherlock tilted his head back, beam from the headlamp illuminating the ladder that led up past an open hatch. Without awaiting her permission, he pulled himself up, ignoring the sound of his name being called in warning, and clambered up the ladder easily, slowing as he reached the opening.

The space felt smaller, suspicion confirmed by the bottom of the stairs caught in his light after only a few steps. Sherlock kept an ear tuned to the sounds of Hassard and the constable climbing up after him, and took stock of his surroundings – this was a used space, cluttered by equipment and not by graffiti. Footprints everywhere – probably the ones they were looking for, but impossible to discern amidst all the others – and the equipment here hadn’t been abandoned, judging by the outlines on the concrete floor where things had clearly been moved.

“The hatch has a lock on it,” Hassard said. “Or it did, until it was broken.”

Sherlock nodded vaguely, filing the information away. It meant the killers had reliable access on this side, too. Possibly another accomplice, more likely working knowledge of the schedule that brought people down here. Fewer links in the chain.

“Well,” Hassard said, stepping up beside him, “let’s see if our luck holds out, shall we?”

* * *

“It’s just storage.” The protest from the beleaguered guard beginning to grate on John’s nerves after the third time.

“It’s never _just_ anything,” Lestrade muttered in reply – John was sure he wasn’t imagining the cynical irritation in the DI’s voice – as he juggled the keys, fitting one into a padlock.

The click as it was opened made John’s hair stand up on end – _no_ , he realized, it wasn’t the lock opening. There had been something else behind the noise, something Lestrade had heard too, and the guard, because they froze in unison with him, John’s good hand raised to signal a stop.

 _Rats_ , he thought, but years in the army had taught him to detect the difference between human and animal noises, and this had a distinct – and worrying – human quality to it. Like footsteps on creaking metal stairs.

He was holding his breath, aware of it only when Lestrade exhaled slowly.

“This is Detective Inspector Hassard with the Metropolitan Police!” a voice called through the metal barrier. “Whoever’s on the other side of this door, I need you to identify yourself and open it – _slowly_!”

“Bloody hell!” Lestrade swore. “Amanda?”

There was a pause, Lestrade meeting his eyes incredulously, then two voices replied, mingling with one another:

“Greg?”

“ _Lestrade?_ ”

“Jesus Christ,” John muttered. “Sherlock?”

“We could stand here calling one another’s names,” Sherlock snapped, and John grinned at the abrupt note of impatience, “or you could put yourself to good use and open the damn door!”

“I thought he was supposed to consult for us,” Lestrade muttered, undoing the next padlock, then fitting the key into the lock on the door’s handle, “not order us around.”

“Same thing, with Sherlock,” John replied.

“I _can_ hear you,” an affronted baritone said as Lestrade swung the door open. Three faces greeted them, Sherlock looking as cool and superior as expected, Hassard looking both amused and annoyed, and a constable John didn’t recognize looking just as bemused as the security guard.

“This is a coincidence,” Lestrade remarked.

“Hardly,” Sherlock sniffed. “We were both looking for the same place. What took you so long?”

“Us?” Lestrade asked. “What about you?”

“Aren’t you people supposed to talk to each other?” Sherlock demanded. “We were busy.” John saw Hassard roll her eyes, shoulders moving with a soft sigh.

“Donovan’s probably trying to get ahold of you,” she said to Lestrade. “We’ve found Richard Douglas.”

* * *

Sherlock insisted John look at the body, so he did, half wondering if it was becoming a necessary ritual for the detective, like his sock index or the way he colour coded his shirts hanging in the closet.

He was certain the man was dead, but checked his assessment carefully nonetheless. He’d seen too many hypothermia victims in his time to write anyone off so easily – not to mention he knew at least two people who were prone to suddenly coming back to life.

He doubted Douglas was going to, not if the same poison that had killed Sarraf had found its way to him, too.

 _Belladonna_ , he thought, giving his head a shake. _Who’s bloody idea was that, I wonder?_

Lestrade and Hassard took his word for it, and John knew Sherlock was halfway offended that the medical examiner didn’t need the confirmation, but he didn’t care. She had a job to, and he was happy to let her have it. The cold and the damp were beginning to seep into his shoulder, and the caffeine from the coffee was wearing off.

“We’ll need the surveillance tapes from this building,” Sherlock was saying as Douglas was carefully loaded into the waiting ambulance. John caught Lestrade beginning to shake his head, but Sherlock ignored it – as usual – ploughing ahead. “And the surrounding buildings – any views of the street that show the entrance and exit. Key card scans from the lot, particularly anything unusual within the past week or so that could raise questions. We’re looking for someone without a pattern, or perhaps a new established pattern–”

“Right now, we’re not looking for anything,” Lestrade snapped, stopping Sherlock up short. John fought a smile at his partner’s momentary stunned silence, and watched the DI grab the opportunity before Sherlock could draw a breath. “We have the body, but it still needs to be autopsied. We have two entry points – or an entry and exit, whatever you want to call it. We have techs for this kind of things, Sherlock, _and_ we’re done for the night.”

“Done?” Sherlock snapped. “What do you mean, done?”

“I mean d-o-n-e,” Lestrade replied. “Done. It’s been,” he checked his watch, “twenty hours since we were called out on this. I realize you never sleep, but the rest of us do.”

“We don’t have time–”

“Right now we do, yeah. We have the bodies.”

“The suspects–”

“You do realize there are more than three people working for the Met, right? That we don’t keep regular hours, and other people can take over for a bit?”

“Other people are–”

“Idiots. Yeah. I know. Believe me, you’re pretty damn clear on that point. But since we’re _all_ idiots, it shouldn’t really matter which of us are working, right?”

John saw Hassard give a wan smile as Sherlock huffed and rolled his eyes.

“Go home,” Lestrade said. “Sleep. Or do whatever it is you do in place of sleep. We’ll have plenty for you to do tomorrow.”

“You can’t–” Sherlock began, pursing his lips angrily when John cut him off by clearing his throat softly. He subsided, grudgingly, and John wasn’t surprised when the subject came up almost immediately in the cab.

“Sleep,” the detective mutter derisively, nostrils flaring at John’s small smile.

“Some of us do, you know. Even you’ve been known to, on occasion.”

“We have a _case_ , John! There’s no time to waste dithering in bed!”

“Is that really a waste of your time?” John asked, ignoring the raised eyebrows from the cabbie in the rear-view mirror. Sherlock rolled his eyes, making an impatient gesture that had John grinning. “Relax,” the doctor said. “Lestrade can’t actually make you sleep, and I won’t try. You can lead a horse to water and all that. Although I’d feel better if you had some actual water to drink. And maybe something to eat.”

Sherlock huffed again, but the sound had a consenting note to it, and John recognized it as compromise, Sherlock Holmes style. He’d have some fuel in him, at least, and he could collapse after the case and sleep for over half a day – or he’d submit to at least a few hours if he reached John’s fifty-two hour limit.

It was one thing to let Sherlock _be_ Sherlock; it was another to have to sedate him because he’d gone without sleep so long that being awake was a habit he couldn’t break.

“Anyway,” John said as Sherlock conscientiously opened the front door for him as the cab pulled back into traffic, “you don’t need the Met to hack into the CCTV cameras, and it’ll give you something to do.”

The knowing smirk Sherlock cast over his shoulder vanished when the detective’s eyes flickered to something beside him, and it took John a moment to remember he’d left bags there.

“It’s–” he began as Sherlock released the door behind him, letting it swing closed to cut them off from the street.

“Her clothing,” the detective replied without looking up.

“Yeah,” John said, closing his eyes briefly and cursing his own stupidity. “Sherlock– Christ. I’m sorry. I just thought– I needed something to do and I thought her clothes… Neither of us can use them, and there are people who can.”

“Yes, of course,” Sherlock replied, and John could hear the utter practicality in his voice, but there were faint shadows around his eyes, sobering his expression in the dim common corridor light.

“One bag is for your homeless network,” John said, and felt it lacked completely in any relevance. “I’m sorry. I should have asked.”

“Why should you ask?” Sherlock replied. “They’re your things now.”

“They’re _our_ things,” John stressed. Spreading the responsibility between them made it so much easier – and John knew without admitting it, even really to himself, it was because then neither of them needed to be the one making all the decisions.

“As you said, her clothes aren’t useful to us.”

“I still should have warned you,” John said. “I needed something to do. I’ll put the bags back in her flat.”

“John,” Sherlock sighed, one hand curling around John’s good arm. “It’s all right. It needed to be done. I do know a lot of people who will benefit from it.” He hesitated, grey eyes flickering over John’s face. “Thank you.”

John nodded mechanically, surprised to feel the sudden, brief press of lips on his cheek, and Sherlock was looking abashed – almost defiantly so – as if caught his with hand in a sweets jar. John kissed him in return, not as quickly and on the lips.

“All right?” he asked.

The corners of Sherlock’s lips twitched, a glimmer in his eyes chasing away the light shadows.

“All right,” he agreed.


	11. Chapter 11

John was subjected to a puzzled look when he took the seat at the desk across from Sherlock. He returned it with an expectant one of his own, eyebrows raised.

"Well?" he asked. "The police can't send _me_ to bed either, and I haven't been up for twenty hours. What do you want me to do?"

The small smile on Sherlock's lips lit his eyes with a gleam.

"Show me the map," he commanded.

It would have been easier if John had been able to tuck the actual map away in his coat pocket – but surrounded by a police officers, that would have been a tricky task at the best of times, not to mention the map's size or how he was hindered by his injured arm. He'd taken pictures, though, and plugged his phone into his laptop, letting them see the photographs more clearly.

Sherlock circled the desk to stand behind him, leaning over John's bad shoulder, holding himself far enough away that John wasn't worried about being jostled. A hand came to rest on the back of his neck, thumb tracing the ridge of his vertebrae, and John glanced up, balanced between amused and surprised.

"What?" Sherlock demanded.

"Nothing," John replied, failing to fight down a smile. "Right, let me walk you through it."

He counted it as a minor miracle that Sherlock didn't interrupt, even if another glance upward showed the detective's eyes narrowed in concentration as John led him through the schematic of the underground maze, drawing the trip Sherlock and Hassard had took, and showing him how the other two exits connected with the ones they'd used.

"Three office buildings and a bank," Sherlock said, the quick, questioning look he gave John making the doctor nod.

"From what we're able to tell, they were all built about the same time – in the thirties – by the same firm."

"The tunnels were what then? Storage? Access? Maintenance?"

"Maybe all three," John said, careful to shrug only his right shoulder.

"Bomb shelters in the war," Sherlock added.

"Why not?" John asked. "They were there. Useful to the people working in there."

"But who works in them now?" Sherlock murmured. "Aside from Douglas and that security guard. The one in which we just met, who are the occupants?"

"Uh, a construction firm – that was some of their stuff in storage down there. A law office and an insurance firm, I think."

"What about the others?" Sherlock demanded.

"Well, the bank is the only business in its building. Not sure about the other one though."

"Douglas' building had security and so did the second one. The bank will too, of course – it's possible that the last of the buildings also has it."

"You think another guard was in on it?"

Sherlock shook his head, eyes narrowed at the laptop screen.

"I think our suspect pool has been significantly enlarged, John. The fewer people who knew about this, the easier it would be to keep it contained. The likely entry point is this construction firm's building, given the ease of access to the main tunnel and the broken lock on the hatch."

"But it's still possible it was one of the other two buildings," John finished for him.

"Precisely!" Sherlock snapped, pulling away to pace the confines of the living room in long, quick strides. "John, we're looking at hundreds of people, and we _know_ there's no link between Douglas and Sarraf – aside from the fact that they're both victims. We _don't_ know why Douglas died, and presumably Sarraf was a casualty of convenience to get access to Mycroft's office. If we had the imposter Sarraf, _maybe_ we'd have a starting point, but this–" He cut himself off with a disgusted gesture at the laptop.

"Mycroft's the pattern," John said. "We know that, at least."

"But we don't know why or how," Sherlock shot back, raking his fingers through his hair before pressing his palms together, fingers against his lips.

"Do you think he does?" John asked.

"No. Otherwise, he wouldn't have come to us, and this mess would be cleared up. We have one suspect in custody, but he's an accessory, nothing more. We know who's behind this – ultimately – but we don't have the slightest clue who the middle men are."

"Well, Sarraf was impersonated to get into Mycroft's office. What if we looked a link between Mycroft and Douglas? Someone they both knew?"

"We could probably populate one of those office buildings with overlapping acquaintances, John," Sherlock snapped, eyes flashing before he relented with a shake of his head. "This whole case is needles in haystacks."

"In that case, we'd need a magnet," John joked, and saw Sherlock's lips twitch in response, glad that the small joke had made a slight dent in the detective's frustration.

"It gives us a starting point, at least," Sherlock sighed. "Mycroft, not your magnet. Douglas' email shouldn't be too difficult to access, and if alarms are raised at the Yard, Lestrade can manage it."

"You know he's gone home to bed, right?" John asked.

"There are such things as telephones," Sherlock sniffed.

"Fine," John sighed, smiling despite himself. "But what about Mycroft?"

Sherlock gave him a long, slow stare, as if trying to work out whether John was joking.

"I was able to access to a top secret military base using his identification, John. I'm more than capable of hacking into his email."

* * *

"John."

John screwed his eyes shut, shaking his head to dispel the fatigue that was creeping in along the edges of his mind.

"Right, good," he said automatically, passing his good hand over his eyes to the protest of weary muscles.

"Honestly," Sherlock sighed, but John thought he caught a hint of wry fondness in the detective's voice, lurking behind his irritated expression. "Being an army surgeon taught you nothing."

"Not a thing," John agreed. "Least of all the medical expertise you rely on all the time."

"Hardly 'rely on'," Sherlock sniffed. "You're occasionally useful. I suppose."

"You certainly know how to make a man feel wanted."

"I could give you a number of good examples that contradict your sarcasm," Sherlock replied. "But perhaps you'd like me to save that list for a more public venue?"

"Don't you bloody dare," John growled and Sherlock grinned.

"Go to bed, John," the detective said, an unexpected note of tenderness in his voice.

"You need my help," John protested.

"Help, yes. It doesn't help me if you fall asleep and drool all over your laptop."

"I can't take you anywhere," John complained.

"Yet you do, all the time."

"I think it's you who takes me. And it's more 'drag' than 'take'."

Sherlock sat back, folding his arms loosely; John didn't miss the slight stiffness or the hint of fatigue in the motion, but let them pass – that was par for the course with Sherlock, and certainly nowhere near the limits to which he'd push himself.

"I can grant you some leeway for the injury," his partner said dryly. "I have it on very good authority that rest is essential for recovery."

"You put too much faith in this authority of yours," John growled.

"So I've been told. Some habits, however, aren't worth breaking. Bed, John."

"Fine," John grouched, only half serious. He pushed himself carefully to his feet, grimacing slightly at the ache that had settled back into his shoulder. Sherlock followed him down the hallway to the bedroom, so close he was almost on John's heels yet managing not to trip him up. John was surprised to realize how accustomed he'd grown to that, and how it had never really bothered him as much as he'd pretended.

He washed up before Sherlock helped him into his pyjamas, and took two ibuprofen for good measure. Freedom from the sling was a palpable relief, and he didn't bother hiding the contented sigh and smile when he settled onto his side, Sherlock adjusting the pillows carefully beneath his arm.

"You," he said when Sherlock leaned down to kiss him lightly, "are a secret sentimentalist."

"I am not," Sherlock sniffed, avoiding John's gaze as he fussed with a pillow until it met his meticulous standards.

"You are," John contradicted, grinning at the faint flare of nostrils. "Don't worry, your secret's safe with me."

"It had better be," Sherlock warned.

"I'm not interested in sharing," John assured him.

"Good," Sherlock said, kissing him again. "Nor am I."

* * *

He left the door open, ignoring John's smirk. There were practical reasons for doing so – such as being able to hear John more easily should he require help – and that was the only one Sherlock would have admitted to out loud.

Concentration on the case was essential. It was hardly inconvenient to help his focus by providing him with some kind continued contact with John.

_Softy_ , John accused him silently, grinning.

Sherlock paused in the corridor, rolling his eyes.

_Don't_ you _sleep?_ he demanded.

_Since I'm technically you, no_ , John replied, but subsided when Sherlock gave him a mental glower, reclaiming his seat in front of his laptop.

A needle in a haystack was an optimistic assessment; names blurred in front of Sherlock's eyes as he tried to pluck patterns from their ranks. It was a mess, a very human one, and trying sort through it was akin to navigating a maze blind and with his hands bound. Two professional lifetimes of two extraordinarily successful men – there was so much overlap that the information threatened to confuse him. There was always something new, another name that threatened to upset the carefully constructed order in his mind, and each data point created countless others whose connections back to either Douglas or Mycroft could be chased down, dissected, and found empty.

With a sigh, Sherlock sat back, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes the way John had so recently done – or not so recently, he realized, glancing at his watch. It was tempting – distractingly so – to snap the laptop shut, abandoning the work in favour of the warmth of John in their bed.

But abandonment was what _she_ wanted.

_Or is it?_ Sherlock asked himself, tugging his lower lip between thumb and forefinger, only vaguely aware of the faint bite of his thumbnail.

Wales had been a ruse to draw Mycroft's attention away; _this_ had to have been concocted to draw Sherlock back in. Anger was carefully smothered, allowed no fuel with which to grow. There was no margin for error, not here. As little – or less – than there had been during the three day trek through the wilderness. One wrong step may not send him down the side of a hill or into a storm, but this ground was no steadier beneath his feet.

There were no assurances now.

There never had been, not since Lauriston Gardens. Not since that brief meeting in the morgue at Bart's.

The game was on – it always had been. The rules had changed, as had the players, but the fundamentals were the same.

He understood his opponent.

He understood himself. His strengths.

His weaknesses.

_Caring isn't an advantage_.

Sherlock scowled at his brother's unwelcome intrusion. That incisive, aggravating phrase that refused to be deleted, another reminder that he'd failed to measure up to some standard Mycroft knew he'd never meet.

_What doesn't kill you_ , he replied curtly. He could take what his brother so obviously disdained and make it a strength, an advantage.

Perhaps he already had.

The thought made Sherlock pause, drawing his attention away from the compilation of names in front of him. He let it, without frustration or rancour.

John had been played against him in Wales. The abrupt, unexplained absence had destroyed his concentration, kept him from a truth that should have been so simple to deduce.

But it had been John who had pushed him back out into the world, who had made him take the case, who kept him focussed when nothing else would.

Sherlock waited for John to chime in with an 'I told you so' but the mental voice was mercifully silent this time.

A deep breath refocused him, a small, dangerous smile playing unnoticed on his lips, and Sherlock set back to work.

* * *

"Look at this."

"Good morning to you, too," John said. "I slept very well, thanks. Coffee? Tea?"

"No. Look at this."

With an amused sigh, John padded across the living room, leaning over Sherlock's shoulder and receiving a puzzled look when he wrinkled his nose.

"You need a shower."

"No time for that," Sherlock snapped.

"You're a bit whiffy. Must be from crawling around tunnels for hours."

"It wasn't hours and there was almost no crawling. We need to get to the Yard. Someone deleted a large number of messages from Douglas' email account."

"How do you know it wasn't him?" John asked.

"It may have been, at least initially," Sherlock agreed. "Several of them seem to be close to his time of death – but given that we don't know that detail to the minute, I can't say for sure if it was him or someone else. I can't retrieve the emails remotely from his company's server, or at least not without more work than necessary. But from _his_ computer it should be simple. That's why we need to get to the Yard, John."

"Not to mention that you can look brilliant in front of more people if you do it there," John commented. Sherlock sniffed, but refused to meet his gaze.

"You aren't going anywhere like that," John said. "No one will want to be within ten feet of you."

"Your proximity is invalidating your argument."

"I was an army surgeon. I'm used to smells."

"Really," Sherlock huffed, rolling his eyes, and John grinned.

"I'll shave you," John offered to sweeten the deal, and sure enough, he saw the repressed smile tugging at Sherlock's lips.

He had to do it carefully – right-handed wasn't an option, not if he didn't want Sherlock to look like he'd walked through a shredder – but the detective only fidgeted a bit as he waited, which John chalked up as another minor miracle. He let Sherlock shave him in return, all quick efficiency, before shuffling them both into the shower.

The urgency to get to the Yard took a back seat to Sherlock's hair; John didn't say anything about it, whiling away his time by checking his blog and his email as the detective fussed and preened, emerging fifteen minutes later – although if pressed, he'd probably insist it had only taken three.

"Got everything you need?" he asked, earning him a roll of grey eyes.

"I'm a genius, John. I don't forget things."

"Sure you don't," John agreed, grinning at the glare shot his way. They clattered down the stairs, Sherlock in the lead, moving without the hindrance of injury.

"We'll need your magic cab skills this time of day," he commented as Sherlock pulled the door open, both of them stopping abruptly at the startled look on Harry's face as she froze in the act of reaching for the buzzer.

"Harry," John said. "Hi. What– is everything all right?"

She gave him a puzzled look in return.

"Breakfast?" she said. "Remember?"

"Oh Christ," John sighed. "I completely forgot. We're on a case–"

"Which can certainly spare you for an hour or two," Sherlock cut in. John glanced up at him, surprise turning to confusion at the smile on Sherlock's face.

"You don't need me?" John asked.

"Of course I do," Sherlock answered breezily. "But my authority on the necessity of rest is also an authority on the necessity of eating. You shouldn't start your day on an empty stomach."

"What about you?" John demanded, aware of the bemused look Harry was alternating between them.

"Text me when you're finished," Sherlock said without bothering to answer the question. "You can join me then."

"Sherlock–"

"Family is important, John. You've said so yourself on occasion."

"Of course, but–"

"Make sure he doesn't eat too quickly," Sherlock said to Harry. "Bad for the digestion."

"We can reschedule," Harry protested, but Sherlock had already stepped off the pavement and was hailing a cab. They watched him vanish down the street before she looked up at John, giving her head a small shake.

"What's got into him?" she asked.

"If I could ever figure that out," John sighed, "my life would be a lot bloody easier. Come on, let's go up. I don't know about you, but I could use some coffee."


	12. Chapter 12

"We could go out," John said as Harry shooed him into a chair, giving him a sisterly scowl.

"Coffee's already being made," she replied reasonably, rummaging through his fridge and cupboards. John watched her carefully, looking for any reluctance in her expression that hadn't made it into her words.

After Mary, his sister had been wary of leaving her flat for anything other than work, claiming she felt like she was being watched. Whether by Mary's people or by strangers who might associate her with the story, John didn't know – but he certainly understood the feeling.

He smothered a flare of anger, not wanting Harry to pick up on it. If Mary _was_ watching Harry – even through someone else's eyes – he would make her regret it.

He took another slow, deep breath for good measure, remembering what Sherlock had said the night before about letting Adler live in his head. He didn't need to crowd his life with Mary too, and Harry certainly didn't need him obsessing over it.

"Anything I can do?" he asked and Harry snorted, giving him a grin.

"Yeah, sit there and try not to fall over," she replied. "Or get kidnapped, or shot. I know it's a bit of a tall order for you."

John rolled his eyes in return but couldn't fight down a smile; at least she was beginning to joke about it now. It was easy to forget, in the wake of everything that had happened to him and Sherlock, how Harry must have felt when he'd vanished while pursuing a murderer.

Particularly after everything else she'd just gone through.

"So," she said, the casualness of her tone belied by the intent way she was focusing on making breakfast rather than looking at him, "how are things?"

"Things are fine, Harry," John replied, surprised at how little it took for him to believe that today. She cast him a quick glance and John sighed, offsetting the expression with a small smile. "Really, they are."

"Your shoulder?" she asked.

"I'm managing," John said. "Sherlock's been a good nurse. He _has_ ," he added, chuckling at her surprised expression.

"I just… worry," she said.

"Thanks, Mum," John replied, and Harry rolled her eyes, depositing a plate in front of him.

"I'm your sister. I'm allowed to worry."

"You could compare notes with Sherlock."

"Yeah, right," Harry muttered, waving her fork at him. "He was dragging you off on a case when I got here."

"And he's been very conscientious about my arm the whole time," John replied. "You'd be amazed at what I'm not allowed to do right now."

"Well at least _one_ of you has some sense," his sister said, and John raised his eyebrows.

"'Sense' isn't a word I'd normally associate with Sherlock. Unless it came after 'he has a complete lack of'."

"Ha," Harry said. "Given your way, John, you'd be chasing criminals over rooftops and through alleyways, shoulder or not."

"I'll have you know we were mapping some tunnels yesterday and I refused to try and climb a ladder."

"You were crawling through tunnels?" she sighed.

"Walking," John corrected, and Harry's lips twitched.

"You always used to talk about how you'd come back from the war and settle down," she pointed out, but there was a cheeky grin on her face, the triumph at proving him wrong.

"I've lived here for years, and don't intend to move," John said. "That's settled."

"Sure it is," Harry agreed. "At least you're safer here than Afghanistan. Probably."

"London has a distinct lack of landmines and bombings," John pointed out. "And I get shot at a lost less here."

"Yeah, 'a lot less' doesn't make me feel loads better," Harry replied, rolling her eyes. She paused, then gave her head a small shake. "You know, I've got a friend who has a cottage in Sussex. He offered to let me use it whenever I'd like."

"Who're you planning on taking?" John asked, waggling his eyebrows. Harry sighed, tapping her fork impatiently against her plate.

"Not _me_ , you idiot. I meant for you and Sherlock. In case you'd like to get away for a bit. From everything."

John reached across the table and squeezed her hand likely, shaking his head.

"Thanks, Harry. But I'm not sure a weekend in the country is exactly what either of us would consider a holiday right now."

"It's _Sussex_ , John. Roads and mobile signals and shops and everything."

"Sherlock needs to work," John said. "We both do, really."

"Well, the offer stands if you ever want it. It doesn't have to be right now."

"Thanks," John replied, half doubtful he'd ever take her up on it; he knew the reluctance to leave the city probably wouldn't last, not forever, but it was difficult to believe himself, to shake the idea that if he left London, he'd never see it again. "Maybe you should go."

"I might," Harry replied, pushing her food around vaguely on her plate. "Might be nice to get away, have some time to myself. Not that I don't have that anyway– Jesus that sounds so self-pitying."

"I think you've got the right to feel sorry for yourself," John said.

"Maybe," his sister agreed. "But I don't want to. It makes me feel– it makes me feel like she's winning. Mary. All those awful things she did, all those lies, and I still miss her. I don't _want_ to, but I do."

"I know," John said. "I do too, sometimes. Well, the person we thought she was."

Harry nodded, eyes downcast.

"Why not take a friend with you?" John asked. "To Sussex. You don't have to go alone. Make a short holiday of it."

"I might just do that," his sister replied, looking up again, giving him a small smile that was genuine around its edges.

"I've been known to have good ideas," John joked.

"From time to time," Harry replied dryly, reaching for his plates. "And I know you, John Watson. You want seconds."

* * *

"Found anything?"

Lestrade ignored the annoyed scowl aimed right at him when Sherlock glanced over his shoulder. The detective shifted a bit to one side, but Lestrade held his ground; for all the times the damned git had invaded his personal space, he could suffer a little taste of his own medicine.

But the information on the monitor didn't make sense, no matter how close he leaned in to peer at it.

"Not yet," Sherlock growled.

"You've been at it almost an hour. Must be some kind of record."

"It was expertly done," Sherlock snapped.

"Thought you could have expertly undone it."

"This isn't amateur hour at the Yard, Lestrade! Whoever did this knew what he was doing–"

"Or she," Lestrade interjected.

"Yes, or she, fine – that doesn't change the fact that this isn't simple. What were you expecting, perhaps the killer left an obvious email identifying himself and providing an address and time where we could conveniently come round to arrest him?"

"D'you know, that _would_ make things a lot easier."

"Keep wishing," Sherlock retorted. "Perhaps one day you'll have a conscientious killer. Not today. Whatever was being sent from Douglas' email was very efficiently erased."

"But not completely."

"No, not completely."

"So you're still better at this than whoever did it."

Sherlock drew back, managing to pack offended, impatient, and ' _obvious_ ' into one very disdainful expression.

"Can't you make yourself useful?" he demanded, turning back to the monitor, dislodging Lestrade by reaching for the mouse. "I could use some coffee."

"Not my job," Lestrade pointed out.

"Surely you have constables for that sort of thing? Let me _work_."

With a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head – that were, of course, completely ignored – Lestrade left Sherlock to it, waylaying a likely constable to fetch some coffee, and (rather heroically, he thought) resisting the urge to order cream in Sherlock's.

A couple of disaffected techs were working down the hall on Sarraf's computer; the DI wondered if Sherlock had kicked them out or if they'd opted not to work with the prickly genius. _Could have gone either way_ , he supposed – Sherlock was not what anyone would call tolerant of other people's skills and workspace, and since John wasn't there, he'd likely taken to talking to thin air.

"Anything?" he asked, pausing in the doorway.

"Not yet, sir," one of the techs replied.

"Keep at it," Lestrade sighed, leaving them in whatever relative peace could be found in the Yard and finding his way back to his office. He gave a defeated, unsurprised sigh when the stack of files he'd left there greeted him mutely. He'd been hoping if he ducked out for long enough, Hassard would be seized with a sudden fit of generosity and read over them for him.

Of course, if she did that, she'd probably return the favour by leaving him with the bulk of the paperwork she was currently immersed in.

_Fine,_ he thought, hoping the coffee would reach him soon. _Let's see what we've got_.

Interviews from the Douglas' house staff and those who had worked directly with the late Sir Richard Douglas, it seemed. As well as lists crammed with names of those working in the adjacent building. John Watson couldn't have known the can of worms he was opening when he figured out those maps, but another office building meant a whole new pool of suspects – not to mention they had crews checking the third office building and the bank. Even if someone in the other two buildings had known about this… Lestrade sighed, drumming a pencil against his desk absently.

With the amount of people Douglas had known, and the possibility of four buildings' worth of potential suspects, it wouldn't be long before he could expand this to the whole of London.

Or close enough as made no difference.

_Well, not the family_ , he reminded himself. Sherlock had cleared them, and Lestrade was inclined to believe his mad consultant, because both he and Hassard had been there as well. Three suspicious, analytical minds were better than one, after all – and if Douglas' wife or any of their children had been faking the shock and grief, he'd fry his badge and eat it.

He'd seen his share of convincing performances before. Enough to have a pretty good idea when he was being played.

He accepted the delivered coffee with a thanks and a sigh, wishing for something stronger or sweeter. Cliché as it was, there had to be a box of doughnuts around here somewhere. Surely no one would really protest the boss helping himself to one? It would be good to get up and stretch his legs too. Get the blood moving.

Another, deeper, sigh returned him to the files; a well-deserved break was one thing. Procrastinating was another. There were two likely killers at large in London and two dead bodies in the morgue.

The reports on the staff were utterly unilluminating. Lestrade sat back, tossing his pencil lightly onto the desk, toying with the idea of checking on Sherlock again (even if it would irritate the hell out of him) or seeing how Hassard was doing with the paperwork.

The sudden rattle of the blinds on his door as it swung open startled him out of his reverie; Sherlock nearly filled the frame, grey eyes snapping and bright.

"Maps!" he said.

"What?" Lestrade asked, earning an aggrieved sigh, Sherlock's fingers drumming impatiently against the wall.

"Maps, Lestrade. He was emailing maps. Of the tunnels."

* * *

"He was sending them as the information was coming to him – or, more likely, as he was discovering it."

Lestrade peered over Sherlock's shoulder, aware that his own confusion was mirrored by Hassard's and was only compounding Sherlock's impatience.

"Okay, but why?" he asked.

"Providing information to the killers, obviously," Sherlock snapped.

"You think he was in on this?" Hassard asked.

"Clearly. Who better? It wouldn't seem odd for a CFO to access information about his company's building or those in the surrounding area – if asked, he could easily have explained it away as research into the value of their assets, property values, funds needed for renovation, et cetera. As an experienced mountaineer, he would be adept in map-reading, which would explain how he was able to determine the most easily accessible paths in and out of the tunnels, presuming, of course, that he didn't go down there himself."

"But why?" Lestrade asked. "I mean, what could he possibly be getting out of this?"

"His own death," Hassard murmured.

"Hardly something he would have been aware of," Sherlock snapped. "And that's entirely the wrong question, Lestrade." Lestrade opened his mouth to retort, but Sherlock held up a hand, giving his head a sharp shake. "We should be asking is, given who we know is behind all of this, how was he convinced to do this?"

"You think he was working for Irene Adler?"

"I don't know," Sherlock said, and Lestrade was certain he wasn't imagining the distinct flicker of discomfort over the detective's features. It vanished before he could really pin it down, but it had been there. "Whatever his reasons were, I doubt he knew he was plotting his own death – you saw the office. Hardly a man who intends to be beaten. By anything."

"But he was," Hassard said, voice quiet, as if talking to herself. "Who was he sending those emails to?"

"Ah, the right question!" Sherlock said, and Lestrade glared at the exultation in his voice. "No idea." At this, Hassard raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean? Why not?"

"Because our killer – or at least one of them – gets about. Across the entire city," with this, he pulled up a map of London, each little location marker making Lestrade's heart sink even more, "without any obvious pattern – not on any of the tube lines or bus routes, nor corresponding to any commercial delivery schedules. Email accessed each time from public computers – libraries, cafés, et cetera. Never from a private computer, and never from the same computer twice."

"Cabbie?" Lestrade asked.

"Ha!" Sherlock replied, pushing himself to his feet, pacing the length of the narrow space. "That would be obvious, wouldn't it?"

"It would now, anyway," Lestrade sighed.

"Maybe, although potentially difficult for a cabbie to take that much time between fares that consistently."

"We'll start by canvassing the places his most recent emails come from," Hassard said.

"Yes," Sherlock agreed. "No! Wait!"

Hassard paused, giving Lestrade a puzzled look that he returned with a shrug as Sherlock screwed his eyes shut, heels of his hands pressed against his temples, tips of his fingers twitching lightly.

"Things!" he said, eyes opening as if in realization.

"What?" the DIs asked in unison.

"I need some things. From home. Things I forgot. Amanda." He searched for a pen and paper, scribbling something frantically. "I need you to go to Baker Street. Get these things. All of them. Very important."

"What?" she demanded. "I'm not an errand girl! We have constables that could drive you–"

"No, it has to be you, you're the only one clever enough to get it right."

"Greg's at least–" she began, even as Lestrade bristled at the obvious – and probably deliberate – barb. He felt a stab of professional pride that she'd be willing to defend his intellectual honour.

"Please," Sherlock said, extending the piece of paper to her, expression all innocent guile. Hassard let out a sigh, hands on her hips.

"Fine," she conceded, snatching the sheet from him. "But only this once."

"Good, yes, of course," Sherlock agreed and Lestrade rolled his eyes – their genius consultant would probably try that again as soon as he thought it might work. "Lestrade, you go run after baristas and librarians. I've got work to do."

* * *

At least she was getting out in the fresh air. Stretching her legs. A bit of a break from the Yard. And she wasn't in the damn tunnels.

It didn't help much with the irritation, but Hassard shook that aside with a sigh. If this was the most annoying she had to face all day, then she'd consider herself lucky. Parking down the street gave an excuse for a short walk, too.

A flash of colour and movement caught her eye, triggering the instinctive police response before anything else, assessing appearance, height, and weight automatically. Startled posture, flicker of guilt and realization across young features.

"Oi!" Hassard shouted, breaking into a run, but the young man – a boy, really – was quicker, driven by fear, darting away like a deer and vanishing over a fence as soon as she rounded the corner into the alley. Hassard stopped with a scowl, hands on her hips, slowing her breathing with controlled inhalations and exhalations. There was no point going after him; two murderers on the loose far outweighed some idiot teenage intent on a little vandalism.

He hadn't even got far, she noted. A blue line, swirled around itself, cut off abruptly. It would probably come off with some paint thinner and a little elbow grease, and she made a mental note to have the Yard take care of it; they could take it out of whatever Sherlock was paid. If they even paid him at all.

She'd have to tell John, too – maybe not the best news to get first thing in the morning, but since no one had been killed today (yet), she supposed it could be worse.

* * *

"Expecting someone?" Harry asked at the sound of the doorbell.

"Nope," John replied. "Client probably."

"I'll wash up," his sister offered, waving him off when he tried to protest, leaving him to clatter down the stairs and open the door, an apology ready on his lips. It died when he saw Hassard, a flash of panic seizing him until he read the irritated expression on her features.

It was a familiar one for anyone having dealt with Sherlock.

"Just caught some kid trying to spray paint your wall," she said in lieu of greeting. "Well, I say caught. We'll pay for the cleaning though."

"Um," John said, trying to catch up. "Thanks."

Hassard waved a dismissive hand, giving her head a shake.

"Sherlock sent me to fetch some things he claims he forgot," she sighed.

"What things?"

"He gave me a list."

John rolled his eyes, wryly unsurprised.

"And just this morning he told me he's a genius who doesn't forget things."

"Yeah, right," Hassard muttered, eyes glinting with amusement.

"You might as well come up," he said, beckoning with his good arm and leading the way up the stairs. Harry appeared in the doorway, drying her hands on a towel, and both women paused, surprised.

"Amanda," Harry said. "Hi."

"Harry – good to see you. Good morning," Hassard replied. "I'm sorry, I wouldn't have come barging in if I'd known John had company."

"We were just finishing up," John said. "Sherlock knew she was here, after all."

"If he bothered remembering," Harry replied with a snort.

"He certainly neglected to mention it," Hassard said dryly, earning a grin from Harry as she stepped back to let them into the flat.

"Everything okay?" Harry asked.

"Oh yes," Hassard replied. "The glamorous life of a DI, being sent on errands and chasing would-be vandals down alleys. And here I thought Greg was exaggerating when he told me about the Yard, back when we were at Chiswick."

"It can't be all bad," Harry pointed out with a smile.

"The coffee is infinitely better," Hassard replied, sending John a cheeky grin when he snorted. That _was_ true, but wasn't any real praise for the coffee he'd had at the Yard. "But that reminds me, I did try that place you suggested."

"And?" Harry asked.

"You were right – it's amazing. I'm afraid to tell anyone; it'll be overrun by police officers if I let it slip."

"Police officers willing to pay a lot for their coffee," Harry replied dryly.

"True," Hassard replied with a smile. "But there are some of us who appreciate quality, and you wouldn't believe the peer pressure among cops."

"I'm a solicitor," Harry said. "I've got a pretty good idea."

"It can't be as bad as all that," John commented, resisting the temptation to tease his sister about comparing coffee shops when he'd been missing. He couldn't blame her for having found distraction wherever she could – that wasn't at the bottom of a bottle.

"I did agree to come here for a detective who isn't even a real cop," Hassard replied wryly, arching an eyebrow at him. "And I'm not even sure what I'm getting out of it. It was probably a thinly veiled excuse to check up on you."

"It's barely been an hour," Harry sighed.

"And I was about to head over there," John added.

"Ah, so errand girl and personal chauffeur. Well since I'm here, I might as well fill this list. If Sherlock wants to send me on a fool's errand, he's going to get what he asked for out of it. Let's see." She pulled out a folded piece of paper, eyes skimming over it, eyebrows raised.

"Fool's errand indeed," Hassard huffed. "One tea bag, emptied of tea. The sextant, which, he writes in brackets, is 'on top of the thing'. Your dog tags, apparently. His two spare watches from his dresser, and two and a half biscuits. You're supposed to be sure to measure that. Precisely."

John sighed, aware of his sister's sardonic gaze as he gestured for the paper. It was Sherlock's writing all right, that familiar hasty scrawl. It probably _was_ an excuse to send Hassard to round him up, but John was happy to side with her. If Sherlock wanted these things, he could have them. And then he could deal with bringing them home.

"Give me a couple minutes," he said.

"You're not really going to?" Harry asked, folding her arms, eyes twinkling.

"See how much he likes it," John grouched, given away by the smile on his lips. He collected Sherlock's haphazard list, half wondering how the mad genius had come up with it. The watches hadn't worked in the entire time John had known Sherlock, but he dropped them into the bag before heading into the kitchen. The tea bag was tricky to cut open with his left arm in its sling, but he managed, then turned to making a careful measure of the half biscuit with callipers for the extra precision, all while keeping an ear on the conversation in the living room and smiling to himself.

The sextant was on top of the fridge – _of course, perfectly logical_ , John thought – and he left it there for the moment, waiting for the conversation to ebb into a small, awkward pause. When it did, he called Hassard's name, knowing Harry would follow out of some vague sense of sisterly obligation.

"Could you give me a hand?" he asked, gesturing vaguely to the sextant's unlikely resting place.

"Two, even," Hassard replied, standing on tiptoes to take it down, making a face at the thick layer of dust. Harry took it with a tea towel, shooting John a mild scowl.

"Right," he said, as his sister handed him the dusted instrument to drop into the bag. "That's the lot of it."

"I guess this is my cue for a graceful exit," Harry said.

"I'll call you soon," John promised, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek before she left.

Hassard helped him out of his sling so he could shrug his coat on carefully, and carried the bag of Sherlock's random requirements down the stairs without being asked, dismissing his thanks with a shrug and a wave of her hand.

John paused just inside the front door, hand wrapped around the handle, debating quickly and silently with himself before turning back.

"Can I give you a bit of advice?" he asked.

"About Sherlock?" Hassard replied. "You're the expert."

"Ha," John muttered, almost under his breath. "No, not about Sherlock." Hassard arched an eyebrow, expression both curious and cautious. John drew a breath and plunged ahead before he could talk himself out of it. "Harry really likes Vietnamese food. And Thai. But good Thai."

Hassard was silent for a moment, features unreadable until a small smile quirked on her lips and she nodded, a short, curt movement.

"Thank you, John," she said. "I will definitely keep that in mind."


	13. Chapter 13

Sherlock had taken over the tech room like he'd been there for years, shooting John a pointed glare – whether at the interruption or the way John dropped the bag of useless items on the desk, it was hard to say.

"So good of you to come so quickly," he drawled. John raised an eyebrow, wishing he could fold his arms – not that his best captain's glower ever had much effect on Sherlock, unless the detective knew that faked contrition would get him something he wanted.

"Two and a half biscuits," he said, "measured exactly. _And_ you're the one who insisted I stay behind to have breakfast with Harry."

"You get fidgety when you don't eat," Sherlock murmured vaguely, attention absorbed in emptying the bag, piling the equipment – if it could be called that – on the desk, except for the biscuits, which he stacked on one another with worrying precision.

"Sorry, I'm the fidgety one?" John asked.

"Only when you don't eat," Sherlock repeated with a roll of his eyes, standing and catching John's face in one hand, holding just tight enough that the doctor couldn't pull away, grey eyes narrowed and scrutinizing.

"Hmm," he hummed, lips drawn into a thin line, and John sighed, relaxing and waiting with strained patience until Sherlock was apparently satisfied. The detective drew back, catching the hem of John's jacket, tugging lightly, as if he were a child who wanted attention.

 _Probably not far off_ , John thought with an inward snort.

"Breakfast is _not_ why you left me behind," he pointed out, arching an eyebrow at the innocent, puzzled expression Sherlock adopted immediately. "Branching out, are you?"

"I have no idea what you mean."

"Bollocks," John said with a grin. "You don't need any of this rubbish, and you knew full well Harry was at the flat. Consulting detective and matchmaker? Bit of an odd combination."

"Really, John," Sherlock sniffed, invading John's space by slipping his hands into the doctor's pockets, tugging him even closer, beyond what would be appropriate if anyone else stepped into the room – although, knowing Sherlock, he was probably secretly hoping for Donovan or Anderson to discomfit. "Your sister's sexual conquests are hardly my business."

"Sexual conquests?" John repeated, unable to smother a laugh. "Don't let Amanda hear you say that."

"Where is our esteemed DI?" Sherlock asked, eyes darting over John's shoulder, narrowing accusingly at the door, as if Hassard's absence was somehow a slight.

"Checking in with Greg – that'd be Lestrade, remember? Doing her actual job. I know it's a bit shocking to you, take a minute to wrap your head around it."

Sherlock turned his glare to John, who returned it with a grin, enjoying the way the detective shifted as though caught out. Grey eyes darted past him again then back, and Sherlock worried his lower lip between his teeth – a sight John tried very hard not to find distracting.

"Did it work?" the detective hissed, low baritone dropping to a whisper.

"Maybe," John replied.

"Maybe?" Sherlock demanded, pulling away from John with an impatient huff. "What do you mean, 'maybe'?"

"I mean I gave Amanda some ideas of where to take Harry."

"You mean they didn't…"

"Didn't what?" John asked. "Run off into the sunset together?"

"Don't be absurd. It's not even remotely the right time of day for that. Honestly, how do you people manage? It's so obvious!"

"Not everyone is you," John said. "By which I mean some of us are actually sane. And Harry's last girlfriend was a criminal mastermind, remember. It's not something you just get over."

"I remember," Sherlock sighed, plunking himself back down into the chair in front of the monitor. "She should count herself lucky it isn't the one we're currently looking for."

John drew a breath to retort, but Sherlock's tone had been off-handed; he hadn't really meant that. The doctor swallowed the words poised on his lips and gave his head a quick shake.

"Want to tell me what you've found?"

"There's no pattern," Sherlock snapped as John peered at the map on the screen. It was littered with dozens of location symbols spread out haphazardly across the city – and occasionally in some of the surrounding areas – as if someone had simply picked places at random.

"There's always a pattern, isn't there?" John asked.

"What if it's not just one?" Sherlock replied. "John, we're back to where we were last night – it _should_ be fewer people, but we don't know if that's true! What if this is part of the game, to lead us down the wrong paths over and over again?"

"Do you think… do you think it could be her who sent the emails?"

"Unlikely," Sherlock replied, voice sharp – probably sharper than he'd intended judging by the brief flicker of eyes John's way that contained a short, silent apology. "Too likely she'd be recognized – if not from her own website, though I'm sure your blog had a significant impact."

"Well," John said, shrugging his good shoulder, "what's our next step?"

Sherlock caught his lower lip between his teeth again, expression distant, and John turned his eyes to the monitor to keep himself focused.

"The bike courier?" he asked suddenly.

"What?" Sherlock demanded.

"All of these places – you said it's not a pattern from the tubes or buses. Could it have been the fake bike courier?"

"Why?" Sherlock asked. "He didn't have to maintain the cover for any reason other than getting into Mycroft's office. There would be no point to this," he gestured briefly at the monitor, "and it's too spread out for a single man on a bicycle. No, John, it would have to be a vehicle. Some had to drive this–"

He cut himself off, expression sharpening suddenly, snagging John's attention.

"What?" the doctor asked, but Sherlock had that familiar far-away and focused look that told John ideas were slotting into place too quickly for him to speak them out loud. "Sherlock."

Sherlock ignored him, turning back to the computer, fingers flying over the keyboard, a look of distaste flickering over his features as he was thwarted by password controls.

"Is this a good idea?" John murmured, resting his good hand lightly on the back of Sherlock's neck.

"We're in a police station," his partner pointed out. "It can't be illegal if the police are doing it."

"Um, yeah," John said. "Absolutely."

"Let me work, John!" Sherlock snapped. "Make yourself useful. Go get Amanda."

"Fine," John said with a roll of his eyes, unable to keep a certain fondness from his voice or to keep himself from carding his fingers through Sherlock's hair – and he didn't miss the way the detective tilted his head ever so slightly into the touch without taking his eyes from the screen.

He hid a smile and spent several minutes tracking down Hassard and Donovan, happening upon them in a break room after finding Hassard's office empty. Donovan gave him a tired look that John was used to by now, but Hassard's gaze was sharp.

"His highness wants to see you," John said. "Thinks he's found something."

"That'd put him one step ahead of us then," Hassard commented, and John didn't miss the faint scowl on Donovan's features – privately, he thought she should start feeling some gratitude toward Sherlock, despite the fall out from his death. She hadn't been reprimanded the way Lestrade had, and Sherlock's return had absolved her of any guilt over his supposed suicide.

Not to mention he'd managed to stop Moriarty _and_ protect the life of someone she worked with.

Hassard tilted her head, a brief gesture for Donovan to follow, and fell into step behind John. He doubted there was much rush – Sherlock was probably still furiously at work, so the detective's sudden appearance in the corridor just outside the tech office startled him. To say nothing of the phone that was thrust toward his face, screen too close for him to read the backlit words.

"What did you find?" Hassard demanded.

"Nothing. Waste of time. Dead end. But _this_ ," he consented to pull the phone away enough so that John could see it, although it was passed off to the DI before he could read the text message. "Mycroft _has_ been busy. Our imposter Sarraf was just spotted at Paddington Station."

* * *

"This is ridiculous!" Sherlock snarled – for the third time – pacing of the confines of the tech room, tendons jutting out on of the backs of his hands as his fingers splayed in frustration.

"I know you have a badge," John said, stretching out in the office chair, privately enjoying the show, "but it isn't actually _yours_ , so you don't count as a police officer. You can't do any actual arresting."

"Identification, John! I could locate him far more easily!"

"There are a dozen police officers there, Sherlock," John sighed.

"Precisely!" Sherlock snapped, as if this somehow backed up his point. John raised an eyebrow but conceded internally; Sherlock's ability to detect faces was probably sharper, but it wouldn't frustrate him less to hear that, so John kept it to himself.

"Lestrade did say he'd let you talk to him."

" _If_ they manage to catch him!" Sherlock retorted.

"That _is_ their job, y'know. They can actually muddle through without you sometimes."

"Ha!" Sherlock muttered, flopping his long body into a chair. John let the grey-eyed glare slide right past him.

"There's still the email problem," he pointed out, "and the fact that there had to be more than one person moving the bodies. What did you think you had?"

"I told you," Sherlock snapped, "dead end. The fake courier knows–"

"Or we hope he does," John interjected and Sherlock rolled his eyes with what John considered a very theatrical sigh.

"So there's little point in trying to work it out now," Sherlock finished. "Waste of time."

"Since when are you worried about wasting time?" John asked, raising his eyebrows.

"I have a finite supply. Presumably," Sherlock sniffed.

"Oh, I see. Wasting everyone else's time is fine, but not yours."

"Obviously."

John grinned, giving his head a shake and pushing himself to his feet.

"If we have to cool our heels here, I'd like to do so with a cup of coffee. And you need something to eat – no! You're not allowed to argue."

"I have the biscuits," Sherlock replied.

"What, all two and a half of them? Not enough, Sherlock. What do you want?"

"I'll go," Sherlock said abruptly, standing to tower over John.

"It's fine–"

"You'd find it difficult to carry two coffees and whatever questionable pastry you pick for me with only one hand. Stay here. I won't be long."

John sighed, acquiescing with a small shake of his head.

"You _will_ get something to eat, right?" he pressed. Sherlock's nose wrinkled but he gave a curt nod, edges of his lips tightening with displeasure. John held his ground, Sherlock's dislike of eating during cases be damned. He was still far too thin for the doctor's liking.

"Fine," Sherlock sighed. "Yes." He bent, giving John a brief kiss, a thumb tracing behind the doctor's ear. "I'll be back."

"I'll be here," John replied with a slight smile. He watched Sherlock go, appreciating the view, before settling back into his chair to wait.

* * *

The worst of the morning traffic had cleared, and getting a cab was a matter of only a few moments. Habit made Sherlock check the driver – even with Moriarty dead, it wouldn't pay to be unwary. It was unlikely that Mary would have him abducted on a public street, but trying to predict her actions would be a mistake.

And he'd been taken unawares too recently. Granted, it hadn't been in broad daylight in front of the Met's headquarters, but still. Someone might forego the risk for expediency if they thought his guard was down.

Satisfied, Sherlock slipped into the back of the cab, giving his destination as he pulled out his phone to check the time. He set the watch on his wrist, watching the second hand tick slowly around its endless circle and smiled, satisfied.

John would figure it out. He always did.

* * *

John wondered if Sherlock could be convinced to wait this out at Baker Street. The idea held some appeal for him – but probably wouldn't for the detective. He supposed if he wanted to be subject to more sneers and put upon sighs, he could always suggest it. John grinned to himself; he was lucky Sherlock hadn't stowed away in the boot of a police car.

He turned back to the computer monitor, studying the map as he chewed absently on his lower lip. Whatever Sherlock thought he'd been onto wasn't immediately apparent – John ignored the huffy "obvious" in Sherlock's mental voice – and he could see no pattern. Unlike the maps of the tunnels, nothing jumped out of him here, even when he tried to look at it as a surgeon.

It wouldn't work, he realized. It had with the tunnels because the architecture of the city was deliberately constructed, whereas this was charting someone's movements. Someone who might have chosen to make them as random as possible.

 _Or more than one person_ , John reminded himself, but he couldn't pick up any clustering either. Maybe they'd had a system. Random number generators. Drawing addresses out of a hat. Blindfolded and throwing darts at a map.

He sighed, pushing away from the desk and checking his watch. Sherlock was dawdling – _leave it to him,_ John thought, _to offer to go then get bored with it._

He fished his phone from his pocket, opening his text programme.

 _Did you decide to walk to the continent for coffee?_ he sent. The near immediate reply surprised him; he'd fully expected Sherlock to dodge the subject to avoid taking responsibility.

_You were right. – SH_

"Christ," John muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes.

_Sherlock, there's loads of perfectly good coffee shops right here. Pick one that's close and get back here._

_Not about the coffee, John,_ Sherlock replied.

 _What?_ John sent back, a sinking feeling settling into his stomach.

_About Douglas._

_What about Douglas? Sherlock, what the hell are you doing?_

_You asked if Douglas had a driver. He didn't. But his wife did._

"What?" John muttered, silently cursing the sling that made it even trickier than usual to type.

_You said it wasn't the wife!_

_Exactly_ , Sherlock replied, and John cursed, voice loud over the faint electronic hum that permeated the room. He was on his feet and striding down the hallway before he knew it, barging in on the techs with only a cursory knock.

"I need you to trace a phone for me. Right now. This is the number." He held out the phone just long enough for the constable to nod, her expression shifting quickly from startled to focused before she turned back to her monitor. John pulled up Lestrade's phone number and rang in, hoping like hell the DI would take his call even in the middle of an operation.

"Greg," he said sharply, pre-empting any greeting or questions, "we have a problem."


	14. Chapter 14

Texting Mycroft had been a tedious necessity, but it offset some of the tiresome, overbearing older-brother lecture that was sure to follow and ensured that electronic eyes were turned where he wanted them, giving him the blind spots he needed and erasing others that would be troublesome otherwise.

For a fleeting moment, Sherlock let himself entertain the fantasy that he could teach John how to manage and manipulate the city's surveillance grid. Keeping ahead of Mycroft finding out would be tricky, but very worth it. His brother's resources were useful, but Sherlock begrudged the price he always had to pay.

He didn't mind paying John's price, not in the least.

The hint of fresh air as he slipped from the cab was short lived; the sensation broadened as other scents were identified – dust, petrol, rubbish, the general pollution of the city. The cabbie pulled away, unconcerned, and Sherlock hovered, pretending to check his phone, drawing the illusion of boredom and normality around him. Any eyes watching – real eyes – would pass him by, disregarding, giving him the opportunity to slip away unremarked.

He dropped his phone back into his pocket as he stepped into the alley. Shutting it off now would look suspicious – not from John's point of view, and he knew the doctor was having it tracked, doubtlessly feeding the information to Lestrade and hurriedly trying to triangulate his exact position.

It was his quarry he had to deceive. A powered down mobile would look suspicious. Confidence – arrogance, really – was the attitude he needed to project. Sherlock's lips curled into a smirk when John's internal voice pointed out he wouldn't even have to pretend.

He refocused, ignoring the mental version of his partner, trusting that the real one was doing what Sherlock had intended, and followed his observation and instincts, winding down service alleys past forbidding, unmarked metal doors and forgotten corners.

_Maps_ , he thought. It was all down to maps of the city, knowing its ins and outs, its secret places, its thoroughfares. Knowing how to traverse it in plain sight or by stealth, hidden underground. He wondered, passingly, how well Douglas had known London, how detailed and accurate his mental maps had been, how easily he'd held such information in his head.

It was a pity he was dead. Sherlock would have enjoyed the challenge of someone who could navigate the city so well.

He paused mid-step, feet silent on the ground, listening. Someone following him, professional, subtle, almost not there. No sound, no smells. Facts were facts, and deductions couldn't be based on instinct, but Sherlock trusted his, especially here and now, after Wales.

He didn't look behind him, didn't change the pattern of his breathing. Kept his gaze focussed ahead, inching forward, back to the worn and dirty brick. A change in the depth and brightness of the light forecast more open space; he slowed deliberately, letting his shadow think he was being cautious – and practicing real caution. No point in being rash.

The car he was expecting was there. Black, sleek, tinted windows. Not the car he would have associated with Douglas' wife. Purchased for her by her husband. Privacy and anonymity allowed her to vanish in the sea of similar cars that plagued the city, to move across London unremarked.

Allowed her driver to do the same.

The engine was idling, the underlying petrol smell slightly stronger now. Tinted windows refracted interest but didn't eliminate visibility altogether; Sherlock could make out the shape of someone in the driver's seat. Ostensibly waiting on Sarraf's imposter. The train station was a ruse – with a touch of desperation but not without merit. The man the Met was looking for had no intentions of getting on a train. There was no security in leaving the city, at least not that way.

But this… in this car, he'd have been as unnoticed as Mrs. Douglas had been. As her driver had been.

Sherlock crept around the car, keeping low, vision attuned to the man in the driver's seat, hearing and other senses attuned to whomever was following him. There was no movement from the car's occupant – forced and deliberate, because a man really waiting on a fugitive would be alert, would have seen Sherlock already, would have confronted him or fled the scene.

He smiled to himself, thin and fleeting.

The car was gleaming, kept clean and polished lovingly. Or perhaps nervously, a familiar routine used to keep the mind from overrunning itself, to maintain the outward projection of calm and innocence. Sherlock trailed a fingertip over the surface, leaving a mark. His mark, taking car to impress a full, unbroken fingerprint.

Lestrade would appreciate it.

He knocked on the window, saw the man inside start before he could get the reaction under control, near panic flashing across his expression. Sherlock smiled again, warm but dangerous, waggling his fingers in greeting.

"Good morning, Mister Hinton," he said as the window slid down almost noiselessly, "I believe you know who I am."

"Wrong," he heard from behind him, instinct to turn quashed, letting the blow land on the back of his head rather than his face, a flash of black and dirty asphalt swimming, confused, across his vision as the ground raced toward him.

_Right_ , Sherlock thought, triumphant smile flaring, then fading as darkness stole him.

* * *

John cursed when the small dot tracking the general location of Sherlock's mobile vanished abruptly from the computer screen.

"We just lost him," he said, pre-empting Lestrade's question. There was an echoing curse in response from the other end of the line, drowning out the wash of background voices only briefly.

"We've got the licence and we know he was just here," Lestrade replied, voice loud across the speaker setting on the tech's office phone. John bit his lower lip against a retort – the driver was used to going unnoticed. The doctor was willing to bet on a spare set of licence plates stashed safely somewhere.

But they did have the vehicle's description, and the man himself.

That had to mean something.

_What the bloody hell were you thinking!_ he shouted at his mental image of Sherlock, anger flaring hard before he was able to wrestle it under control, to smother the panic and the sudden adrenaline need to do something.

_C'mon, Watson, think!_ he admonished himself, eyes searching the screen futilely as he fumbled in his jacket pocket for his phone. Sherlock had done this on purpose – presumably he meant to be found, and found in one piece. Calling and texting were probably pointless, but John had to try.

His fingers closed over something unfamiliar, skin registering the cool, heavy touch of metal as his brain tried to make sense of the weight and shape. A frown creased his features, unnoticed, as he withdrew the item from his pocket.

It was a watch.

One of the watches he'd taken from Sherlock's dresser just that morning. One of the two Sherlock had had as long as John had known him, and which had never worked.

It was working now, second hand ticking away in a steady circle.

John stared, uncomprehending. It hadn't been working when he'd dumped it in the bag with the rest of the items on the list. He was certain of that. And it had been on the desk the last time he'd seen it, in the pile of other useless rubbish Sherlock had asked for.

_You cock. You utter cock_ , he thought, remembering Sherlock's hands in his jacket pockets.

John turned the watch over, reading the inscription on the back.

"Here," he said, shoving it at the startled tech. "Use this."

"What–"

"It's a website. And tracking number. Now!" The tech fumbled for a moment before catching up and setting back to work hurriedly. John leaned forward again, good hand on the back of the chair, glaring at the screen.

_This better work, you sodding bastard_ , he thought, catching his lower lip, worrying it. A suspended fear made his heart somehow speed up and stutter at the same time as he silently urged the tech to work faster, to make this happen. The monitor stayed resolutely blank, a faceless map of the city, as information poured from the tech's fingers into another screen, senseless numbers scrolling past.

_Sherlock, you–_

"Got it!"

The signal jumped back to life, catching John's heart with it, surprise and relief tensing his muscles so sharply a warning flare shot through his shoulder. He breathed deeply, trying to relax, lightheaded at the sight of the tiny, blinking dot tracing a slow line away from the station.

* * *

Darkness wavered around him as consciousness ebbed in and out, slipping away from him until he got ahold of it, tugging against its resistance, pulling himself mercilessly away from blissful oblivion to the jolting, uncomfortable present.

Sherlock tried to stifle a groan, the sound dampened by the tape covering his mouth. Pain flared across the back of his head, bright agony in the darkness. He drew a deep breath, and another, letting the worst of the ache subside as his eyes adjusted.

Not entirely dark; shadows delineated by the faint lines of light around the edges of the boot. The smell of petrol clung to him now, reinforced by the hum of a motor and the purr of tires over uneven road surfaces. Each jarring movement made him wince, but it wasn't the worst he'd ever suffered, and refocusing was a matter of moments.

His mind back under his control, Sherlock tested his hands, the sharp pull of adhesive against the fine hairs of his arm smarting. Hands bound behind his back made it impossible to remove the tape from his mouth, and his tongue and lips tasted of glue. He might be able to moisten it enough with saliva to get it to dissolve, but there was no point.

He could feel the steady ticking against his wrist from the unfamiliar watch. His phone had been taken from him – the absence of its weight in his pocket reminded him too much of Wales, but he buried that memory, focussing on the feel of the watch against his skin, trying to hear it over the sound of the car.

It meant John was safe. That he'd figured it out.

He was being tracked, leaving him nothing to do but wait.

* * *

The sound of his phone chiming jarred him and John scrabbled to free it from his pocket, unlocking it to find a programme running that he hadn't known he had. The tracking system was mirrored on his phone's small screen, a reassuring confirmation of the information on the tech's computer.

"What the bloody hell is this?" Lestrade demanded from the other end of the line.

"Insurance, I think," John replied, only half surprised Sherlock had highjacked the DI's phone as well. _You sodding bastard_ , he snarled again to his mental image of Sherlock, who managed to look surprised at the growling anger. John strode from the room and snagged the closest constable he could find.

"Get me a squad car!" he barked. "And someone who bloody well knows how to drive! Now!"

* * *

_Too long, too long._ Sherlock stifled the panicked voice in the back of his mind, concentrating on his breathing. Three seconds on the inhale, three on the exhale. Ten per minute. It gave him an accurate measure of time that would have otherwise been stolen and distorted by the discomfort and darkness.

That would have given the panic a stronger hold, make it harder to shake. He had trained himself out of it well during those nine months, but had always known it was never really gone.

It took John's shape, filling up every available space in his mind and commandeering others already occupied. He'd tried to pinpoint when exactly it had begun – Barts, the pavement outside Baker Street, John's comment about clearing out the rubbish in the flat and the way Sherlock had actually felt embarrassed – but he'd never succeeded.

It didn't matter. He knew that now. Only John's absence mattered. Sherlock huffed in the noisy darkness, giving his head a brief shake. Wales was still too strong. So too were the anger and fear, but they were unnecessary distractions, pulling him away from what really mattered.

Like the sound of sirens, rapidly approaching.

Beneath the duct tape, Sherlock grinned.

* * *

_Shit_ , John thought, good hand gripping the seat unnoticed, skin taut over his knuckles. _He's going to get on the motorway!_

He'd never been in a high speed chase and had no desire to be – and Sherlock was in that car, probably in the boot where he wasn't visible and couldn't escape. The thought of what a collision at those speeds could do to a human body made John numb, panic tightening in his throat.

He could see the driver veering toward the ramp; once on the wider road, he'd have even more of an advantage. Not just speed and space – navigating the city from behind a steering wheel was his livelihood. John risked a glance at the officer who'd been volunteered as his driver; lines of tense concentration drew down the younger man's face and across the back of his hands, but a sharp smile crossed his lips when he glanced at the rear-view mirror.

"Hang on," he snapped as John turned to look over his good shoulder, dizzying relief coursing through him at the sudden sight of flashing lights gaining on them. The burst of speed made him grip the upholstery, white-knuckled, a wave of disorientation clutching his stomach when he turned back to the road ahead. The black car flashed past on the right, behind them suddenly as the constable cut back part way into the lane and slowed sharply.

"Hang on!" the constable ordered again, and John braced himself as best he could one-handed, teeth gritted against the impact that didn't come.

Screaming sirens stopped abruptly, leaving a faint ringing in John's ears as flashing lights danced off the gleaming surface of the car. John kicked his door open, fresh air pouring in, a hand on his collar jolting him backwards.

"He might be armed!" the constable snapped. "Stay here and that's a bloody order!"

John almost growled that he didn't take orders from upstart rookies before swallowing the retort and exerting control with a brief nod. He wasn't carrying his gun, and this wasn't the army – he had no authority here. John waited, breath caught in his chest, as a slew of police officers – Lestrade and Donovan included – surrounded the car, weapons drawn. He wondered vaguely why he was so surprised at the sight; they had been going after a suspected murderer at Paddington Station.

_Oh god_ , John thought, suddenly aware that there were two people in the front of the car, unable to make out anything but silhouettes through the smoked glass. He craned to see through the windshield, succeeding only in making his shoulder ache in protest, unable to get the right angle between the two cars. Yelling was indistinct, Lestrade's voice only just audible over the sound of other vehicles passing them by and the hammering of blood in John's ears.

The moment was suspended, protracted, and he couldn't watch if Sherlock was hauled out of the car at gunpoint – or worse, not taken out at all – but he couldn't look away either, frozen helplessly, trying vainly to see something he couldn't. He'd done the same thing in the darkness in Wales, searching a cold and wind-blown space, clinging desperately to a fading hope.

_This isn't Wales_ , he told himself roughly, holding onto the anger. And it wasn't – the doors of the car were yanked open, two men – both strangers – forced out at gunpoint, movements awkward and hampered by hands pressed against the backs of their heads.

There was no one to stop John this time; he kicked the door back open and scrambled out, pushing past Donovan, ignoring the jolt of pain in his shoulder as she tried instinctively to hold him back. The boot was popped open; John buried his hand in his sleeve and pushed it up.

"You arse!" he shouted at the grey eyes blinking in the sudden light. "You sodding, fucking arse!"

* * *

The shouting was as unexpected as the light; Sherlock winced against both, trying to muster a response but hindered by the tape across his lips. A flurry of movement and noise didn't drown John out at all; the barrage of insults and curses bounced off of him the way he'd been bounced in the car – not painful but constant and unstoppable. Sherlock wanted to explain away the anger, to use hands where words wouldn't be enough, but it would only make John angrier if done in public and Sherlock's hands were useless right now anyway.

His legs were hauled out and cut free, and Sherlock shook off the assistance, clambering clumsily from the car, stopped from falling only by Donovan's hands catching his arms. He glared, righting himself quickly, and a backward glance satisfied him that Lestrade had the driver safely in custody.

"I'm bloody talking to you!" John shouted, and strong surgeon's fingers were gripping Sherlock's face, forcing it back to meet flashing blue eyes. "What the _fuck_ were you thinking, Sherlock?"

He mumbled a response, indignant, and saw Donovan roll her eyes.

"Might help if we took that off," she said, reaching for the tape, but John stopped her.

"Leave it!" he snapped. "It serves him right, running off on his bloody own to chase down a bloody murderer just like– every other bloody time!"

"I did warn you," Donovan murmured. Sherlock rolled his eyes, and John rounded his frustration on her.

"No, you said he'd get bored and murder someone! I don't see any bloody bodies here, do you? What I see is a sodding stupid git who calls himself a genius and who can't help but get himself into trouble at every bloody opportunity!"

"John," Sherlock sighed – or tried to, aware it came out closer to "mmhm" than anything else.

"No, you shut up!" John snapped, jabbing a finger at Sherlock's chest. "You're the one who ran off and got himself caught by a psychopathic driver – _again_ – so you can bloody well deal with the consequences for a little bit!"

Sherlock's shoulders heaved with another sigh and he resisted the useless temptation to explain that the driver probably wasn't a psychopath. Even if he could speak, it would fall on deaf ears.

He sat down, dropping his head forward, hearing an aggrieved sigh.

"Now what?" John demanded. Hands bound and mouth covered, there was little he could do to explain he'd been hit on the head, and Donovan wasn't about to take pity on him. Sherlock risked a glance up, grey eyes darting over the other officers.

"Don't bloody look for Amanda, because she's not here," John snapped. "And she's the only one who doesn't know you well enough not to take pity on you."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and dropped his head again; this time, John got the point.

"You can bloody well wait for a paramedic," he said. Sherlock shifted, exasperated – he understood why John was annoyed, but this was getting tiresome.

He was saved by Lestrade striding over, unceremoniously ripping the tape from his mouth.

"Ow," Sherlock protested, muscles in his arms twitching with the urge to rub his jaw.

"Deal with it," Lestrade snapped. "Care to tell us what the hell you were thinking?"

"I just caught you a murderer, haven't I?" Sherlock replied with a glare.

"You know, there are ways of doing that _without_ getting yourself abducted." Lestrade refrained from making a comment about Wales but Sherlock say it in his eyes anyway – _wasn't the last time enough?_

But it wasn't the same. This was planned. Deliberate. He had resources, and a means of contacting those who could help. Sherlock was willing to bet that he'd been off the grid for less than five minutes at most before John had figured it out.

"Would you undo my hands?" he asked, letting a cool note dip into his voice. Lestrade glared but obliged, and Sherlock rubbed his wrists, encouraging the circulation to return.

"Did you catch the fake Sarraf?" he asked.

"Hassard did," Lestrade grunted. "No thanks to you."

"Only because you refused to let me come," Sherlock replied, arching an eyebrow. "And you wouldn't have caught Hinton otherwise. Or at least, not so quickly," he amended, watching an angry retort die on the DI's lips. Lestrade shook his head, eyes still narrowed, but the familiar set of his expression relaxing around the edges told Sherlock he'd won – even if the admission came only grudgingly.

Donovan, predictably, was less inclined to be forgiving.

"You could have just told us," she snapped. "It wouldn't have been _too_ hard to match the email locations to his car. Even for us normal people."

"This way you've caught him in the act," Sherlock replied coolly. "And you've got both killers at the same time. Neither of them has time to prepare, and both of them know the other's in custody."

"That justifies you being a giant git about the law, does it?" Donovan demanded.

"It justifies me doing the job you hire me for."

"Right, stop right now," Lestrade interjected quickly, and Sherlock drew himself up a bit straighter, feeling a twinge of satisfaction that Donovan hadn't been allowed her obvious comment about how he wouldn't work for them if she were in charge. The glower John shot him deflated him somewhat – it wasn't just John taking Donovan's side, but directing real anger at him.

"Okay if we take him back to the Yard, John?" Lestrade asked, as if Sherlock had no say in or opinion as to what happened to him next. "We need to get his statement."

"Yeah, fine," John replied, shooting Sherlock a dark glare. "As long as you put him in a bloody cell while you do it."


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have seen series 3, but since this series isn't series 3 compliant, I've taken some creative liberties with Sherlock's name. Only a bit.
> 
> Also (again because this isn't series 3 compliant), I knew I'd be writing a Mary who was different than in the show. Consequently, in my head, they look nothing alike. I picture here more as [Lauren Cohen](http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3839077120/nm1659348?ref_=nmmi_mi_all_evt_39), especially from this particular picture (but she's a fictional character, so you're free to picture her however you choose).

The cab ride home was enforced silence; whenever Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, John cut him off with a glare and a sharp gesture. Every shift in movement was rewarded with a warning look, as though John were waiting to again deny him the chance to explain.

Frustration faded quickly to uncertainty. This was too close to the anger that had been directed his way when he'd returned to London. The sudden fear that he'd regained everything he'd lost only to see it slip away again made the words stick in Sherlock's throat.

That, this time, he'd gone too far. That another threat against them neutralized meant only that there was no _them_ anymore. That this thing that he'd been given – or stumbled into, or somehow earned, he'd tried to figure it out but had never been able to – would be taken away by the only person who had the right to do so.

Sherlock gave up on trying to speak, on trying to set things right with words that would only be stilted by the cabbie's presence. He felt a stranger's eyes on him with each abrupt movement John made, with each tiny sigh he couldn't restrain when he was cut off.

If it wouldn't have made John angrier, Sherlock might actually have opted for one of Mycroft's cars to drive them home. Perhaps even Mycroft himself. His brother being superior at him was better than _this_.

Almost anything would be better than this.

John clambered somewhat awkwardly out of the cab, leaving Sherlock fumbling for his wallet, uncomfortably aware of all the times he'd left John to settle the bill. The sound of the front door closing behind them echoed with an odd, lonely harmonic, only accentuating the glowering silence John had imposed on them and Mrs. Hudson's absence. The unnatural quiet felt almost physical. Cold and hollow.

"John–"

"No, Sherlock!" John snapped, rounding on him, a finger jabbing into Sherlock's chest hard enough to be felt through the thick fabric of his coat. "No! No more excuses! You _cannot_ keep running off like that, not after everything else–"

There it was, the tiny sliver of promise that John wasn't through with this, that he expected change, wanted to see it, wanted it to happen while he was there, and Sherlock seized it along with John's good arm, catching the moment of surprise to use as his own.

"John. Do you trust me?"

"What?" John spat, trying to shrug Sherlock off, but not really, a movement that made Sherlock lighten his grip without removing it altogether.

"Do you trust me?"

"Do I trust you?" John shot back. "Why should I bloody trust you after all of that? You ran off–"

"I'm not asking if you should," Sherlock replied, keeping his voice calm in the face of John's irritation at being interrupted. "I'm asking if you do."

"Why? Because I'm an idiot for doing so? Because you want to know how soon you can pull a stunt like that again–"

"Because I trust you," Sherlock interjected. John stared at him, blue eyes raking over Sherlock's features, and the detective let them, fighting himself against putting up the masks he wanted John to see, the unfamiliarity of keeping his expression open – genuinely open – both difficult and uncomfortable.

"I'm not the one who runs off and gets himself abducted at the drop of a hat!"

"To be fair, I've only really done that twice," Sherlock said.

"Twice since I've known you!"

"Well, yes, good point," Sherlock conceded, thumb tracing the line of John's bicep, knowing it would be interpreted as a calculated movement – John's glare at his hand was proof enough – but it wasn't. Not really.

Even now, it surprised him how natural those small gestures felt. How vital they had become. Like breathing, but not boring.

"I trust you John. You know my methods. You _understand_ them. I trusted you would know what to do at the Yard."

"Only because you set the whole bloody thing up!" John snapped.

"Yes," Sherlock agreed. "I trust myself too, John. This is what I _do_."

"If you trust me so much, why didn't you tell me what you were going to do!"

"And what would you have done then?"

"Bloody well not have let you gone!"

"Precisely," Sherlock said, forcing calmness in his voice, refusing the exasperated sigh that wanted to slip in. He knew John. He trusted John – and trusted him to react in certain ways. "But by going, I caught a murderer."

"By going you got yourself knocked on the head, kidnapped, and might have been killed! You said it yourself, Sherlock – he's a murderer!"

"I don't think so."

"You _don't_ think he's a murderer?"

"No, John, I mean I don't think he'd have killed me."

"What? How could you possibly know?"

"Because if the Woman wanted us dead, we would have been. Wales _might_ have killed us, but it might not have – and it didn't. That wasn't the point. We were drugged and flown to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, John. It would have been just as easy to dump bodies instead of living people."

"Don't you dare–"

"You've thought of it, too," Sherlock interjected, but gently. "And it's not what happened."

"But still," John insisted. "To defend himself, he might have killed you–"

"It was a possibility," Sherlock admitted, "but an extremely small one. John, this is who I _am_. I can't stop being _this_ – no more than I'd want you to stop being _you_."

John shook his head, nostrils flaring, eyes darting away to the empty space behind them, and Sherlock felt the panic spark again. He steeled himself, trying – and failing, he knew – to maintain outward calm, not to think about the fact that the door was right behind him.

But John met his eyes again, shifting unconsciously into his military stance, muscles in his jaw tightening. Resolving to get his way, readying himself against an argument, against obstinacy.

"You're not going to do that again, Sherlock. Do you understand?"

"John–"

"Not to me. _Not_ to me. Whatever idiot schemes you come up with, you bloody well _tell_ me, understand? Whatever it is, _I need to know_. I can't– I will chase you down and run after you and do whatever you want me to do, but no more of this. No more me not knowing, no more me scrambling to figure out what the fuck you've done and how to get you out of it! It's not– it's not negotiable, Sherlock. Say no and you won't ever get to sleep in your bed again."

"What?" Sherlock asked, nonplussed. "It's _my_ bed."

"It's a lot more confortable than my bed," John snapped. "So if you want to be a giant git about chasing after murderers, you can sleep upstairs."

Sherlock fought down the smile on his lips, knowing John could read it in his eyes, and nodded.

"You can't tell Lestrade," the detective said. "Or Amanda."

"What, you don't trust them?"

"They can arrest me," Sherlock pointed out. "You can't."

"So that's where the trust me in comes from, is it?" John asked, raising his eyebrows, and there was a hint of mixed humour and seriousness in his tone. Sherlock shook his head, tracing his thumb over the contour of John's ear into short blond hair.

"No," he said.

"You haven't answered my question," John pointed out.

"It wasn't a question," Sherlock replied, but relented at the pointed way John raised his eyebrows. "Yes. All right."

"'I, Sherlock William Scott Holmes, promise to tell you, John Watson, whenever I plan on doing something completely bloody stupid that no normal, sane person would ever dream of doing.'"

"How did–" Sherlock began, cutting himself off at John's triumphant smirk.

"Mycroft can be amazingly forthcoming with certain things. He was surprisingly willing to give me your birth certificate."

"Fine," Sherlock sighed, rolling his eyes at John's cheeky grin. "I promise."

"Nope," John contradicted. "Say it." Sherlock arched an eyebrow but John held firm with his very best captain's glower. Sherlock resisted shifting, aware that the expression worked better on him now than it ought to.

"I, Sherlock William Scott Holmes, promise to tell you, John _Hamish_ Watson, whenever I plan on doing something completely bloody stupid that no normal, sane person would ever dream of doing," he echoed obediently. "You wouldn't like me normal and sane."

"I never said I would," John replied, fingers closed over the detective's hand, turning his head just enough to press a kiss into Sherlock's palm. He laced their fingers together, thumb skimming over the inside of Sherlock's wrist.

"Come on," John said, a familiar fondness slipping back into his voice, matching the glint in his eyes. "Let's go upstairs."

* * *

He helped John with his jacket and sling before twining their fingers together and leading him into the bedroom. John watched him with darkening blue eyes as Sherlock undressed him slowly, focussing on the movements, smoothing his hands over bare skin as it was exposed.

He wished he could lie John down on his back, like he had that first time after Wales, but the injury made that position uncomfortable even if John wasn't moving. He wished they could forego the sling, too, but they're tried that once. In the midst of everything, John hadn't remembered not to use his dominant hand.

Sherlock dispensed of his own clothing quickly, ignoring John's smirk as he took the time to drape it over a chair – wrinkles were always tedious to deal with – before he crawled onto the bed, stretching out alongside John, almost touching, not quite. He leaned in, brushing their lips together, coaxing John's lips open gently with his tongue.

He kept them there until John's lips were swollen, until a flush coloured his cheeks across the bridge of his nose. Sherlock moved down, kissing everywhere, filling the room with the scent of vanilla and the sound of John's moans.

A murmured instruction and steadying hands on his waist helped John brace himself, one-armed, against the headboard. Sherlock kissed down the length of his spine, running his hands in the opposite direction. The scent of vanilla grew stronger again, and the quiet groan John gave caught, reflected, in Sherlock chest when he sat back on his heels, pulling John along with him.

John moaned again, head dropping back, and Sherlock kissed the injured shoulder, lips and the tip of his tongue flickering over the scars. Hands on John's hips kept him still, let Sherlock do the work, until they were both sharing warm breath, quiet gasps. Sherlock interlaced his fingers with John's, shuddering as he let himself go moments before John did.

For a moment, he couldn't move – not just euphoric shock, but a now-familiar surprise. Surprise that he enjoyed this, that John did, that something he'd never really wanted before made sense with John's body. With John.

They lay down together, Sherlock removing the sling and adjusting the pillows as the doctor's eyes drifted shut, expression sated and blissful. Sherlock waited until John was asleep before pressing a light kiss between his partner's eyebrows, where the two deep lines he often wore were erased by sleep.

He didn't succumb. Not yet. That night he would, he knew, and he'd sleep for a solid twelve hours before waking to pester John about having gone to work without leaving breakfast, and John would pretend to be annoyed but really wouldn't be. Things would go back to normal – what passed for normal between them – and Sherlock felt something settle in his chest at the realization.

This, all of this, could be taken away from him. It had been once before. He'd let it – although he hadn't had much of a choice.

There was only one choice now. He'd made it. John had made it. In the silence of their bedroom, patterned only by John's deep, steady breathing, Sherlock smiled slightly, tracing light and absent designs on John's back.

* * *

Mary sighed, lacing her fingers together, elbows resting on her desk to bracket the file in front of her.

 _Irene Adler_.

She knew that name, although not from personal experience. Not directly.

It had first come to her attention via Jim Moriarty – _not_ that he had told her, because by that time, the mad obsession with Sherlock Holmes had eaten away at most of what remained of his sanity. If he'd had any to begin with. More information had come from John's blog and her own subsequent research. Very little of what she uncovered had surprised her, and it surprised Mary even less that Adler was still alive.

She'd proven herself adept at faking her death once before. At least once.

And now she was back, possibly in London, although it didn't pay to make assumptions. Mary's contacts in the Met kept her well informed, and it hadn't been too difficult to piece together the woman behind the abductions to Wales.

But she still had no idea _why_.

It was… annoying.

Obviously the target had been Mycroft Holmes, but Mary had no illusions about the difficulty of getting information that he had. He was on alert for her – as well as for Adler, she was sure – and getting past his defences would be risky at best.

She had her own eyes on Sherlock and John, for her own reasons. Undoubtedly, Mycroft did, too. Brotherly love and all that.

With another sigh, Mary flipped the file closed and pushed it away. She might have guessed that someone who had associated herself with Jim would cause problems. She wondered if she would have to go after Adler herself, or if Sherlock could resolve the situation.

Given what she knew about Sherlock and Adler, that was a tenuous prospect. Mary had never pushed John too hard for information – she knew that would have looked suspicious – but Sherlock and Adler had had… something. Lust? Infatuation? Fascination? Mutually assured destruction?

She wasn't sure there was a word for it, but it had been there.

 _Well_ , she told herself, _maybe not anymore._

Now there was John – and Adler had taken him away.

 _Hell hath no fury_ , she thought, and didn't bother finishing the sentence, because it got the sex wrong.

She put the file somewhere easily accessible – not that she was at risk of forgetting the name and the potential problem – and turned her attention to more productive work.

* * *

John awoke, aware of the warm, empty space beside him before he opened his eyes. Sherlock was up, but hadn't been gone long.

He shuffled from under the duvet and into some clothing, foregoing the sling for now. He knew he shouldn't, but the freedom was a relief, and if he was careful he'd be all right for a bit.

He padded into the living room to find Sherlock sat in his chair, dressed in his comfortingly odd combination of suit and dressing gown. When John settled across from him, Sherlock rose, bending down for a swift kiss, and vanished into the kitchen, only to reappear a few minutes later with a cup of tea.

"Thanks," John said, careful to accept it with his right hand. Sherlock settled down again, tangling their feet together, sipping his own tea thoughtfully.

"Want to tell me about the watches?" John asked, not missing the sudden gleam in Sherlock's grey eyes, the proud smirk that tugged at his lips.

"That was rather clever, wasn't it?" he asked, expression brightening.

"If you give Jennifer Wilson her proper credit," John snorted.

"She was clever too," Sherlock admitted with a one-shouldered shrug. "I modified her system to be useful in the event that I wanted to be found unmurdered."

"You're not going to tell me you have a system for when you want to be found murdered, are you?" John sighed.

"You're already seen it," Sherlock replied.

"That," John said, jabbing an accusing finger at him, "is not funny."

"It's a little funny."

"No, it's really not. Remember, jokes aren't your strong suit."

Sherlock gave him a mock glare but subsided with a small shake of his head.

"Were you ever planning on telling me about the watches? Or how you highjacked programmes into my phone?"

"You know now," Sherlock pointed out.

"I'm adding an addendum," John sighed. "You also have to tell me about stuff like this in advance." Sherlock's nose wrinkled but he acquiesced with a faint glare. Silence lapsed between them, familiar and comfortable, but John could feel his own questions creeping up, pressuring to be asked.

"Sherlock– why?"

Sherlock arched an eyebrow quizzically. John sighed, setting his tea aside, interlacing his fingers and leaning forward carefully, mindful of his shoulder.

"We caught Hinton and the fake Sarraf–"

"Chada."

"Chada," John agreed. "And I understand _why_ Sarraf was killed, but why Douglas? Why this whole thing with the tunnels and the body switching and the puzzles? If– if she wanted them out of the way, there had to be an easier way than this. It doesn't make sense."

"No," Sherlock murmured. "It doesn't."

"Then why is she doing this? What does she want?"

Sherlock shook his head, eyes darting away briefly.

"I don't know, John."

"What does Mycroft know?" John pressed. "What did Douglas know, or what did he do? There has to be some link. Doesn't there?"

"It seems likely," Sherlock agreed. "But Mycroft doesn't know what he knows, John. Without that starting point, we have very little to go on. What did Douglas do? He seems to have met Mycroft once or twice, in passing, but if they'd had any sort of relationship, my brother would be a lot less forthcoming with this investigation, and would be trying to keep us out of it."

"Mycroft doesn't know," John sighed. "That'd be a first."

"Or so he'd like you to think," Sherlock murmured against the rim of his tea cup. John smirked, the expression short lived. He rubbed his hands together slowly, unable to meet Sherlock's gaze briefly.

"Have you thought… Have you thought that this might really be about you?" he asked.

"Yes," Sherlock replied bluntly. He set his tea cup aside, a gentle clink of porcelain against wood. "Yes, John, I have. I think it's very possible, but I don't know _why_ , no more than I know why Mycroft was targeted. I never met Douglas before he died – nor his wife or children, nor Hinton. If he knew or did something I need to know about, I have no idea what it is."

John nodded slowly, unhappy with the admission, but he couldn't expect Sherlock to conjure up information he didn't have.

"So what now?" John asked.

"I don't know," Sherlock said, eyes dropping away again. He was silent for a moment, and John pursed his lips against his immediate questions, waiting. Sherlock was still, breathing almost imperceptible, eyelashes barely flickering.

"John," he said, voice careful, meeting John's gaze again, "I don't know where this is going to go."

John kept himself from answering again, nodding slowly.

"I don't know how far this will go," Sherlock continued, muscles in his throat working as he swallowed, refusing to look away. Carefully, John sat forward, wrapping his left hand around Sherlock's right.

"All the way to the end, Sherlock."

"John–"

"I mean it. Both of us. No dramatic set ups, no heroic self-sacrifice. We're in this together, all the way to the end. Whatever's going on, we'll see it through. And win. Okay?"

Grey eyes raked over his face and John let them, keeping still under the scrutiny, letting Sherlock see whatever he needed to. His partner's expression was unreadable for a long moment, then relaxed by degrees as long fingers tightened around his.

"Not okay," Sherlock said. "Perfect."


End file.
